


Down By Contact

by standinginanicedress



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, High School AU, Homophobia, I don’t know anything about football and i get away with it because neither does stiles LMFAO!!, Lots of alcohol, M/M, discovering sexuality, just a whole bunch of nonsense really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:54:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 117,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23744161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/standinginanicedress/pseuds/standinginanicedress
Summary: Lydia looks over her shoulder to look at Derek Hale again, then back to him. “He’s an asshole, you know.”“You think I don’t know that?” Stiles is confused, furrowing his brow. “I’ve only spent the last ten years of my life fighting with him.”“Yeah, but, I mean, he’s anasshole,” she draws the word out nice and long, as if it takes on a different meaning depending on exactly how she says it. “No one who has ever dated or hooked up with that guy has ever had anything nice to say about him after the fact.”“What do I care about that?”She looks at him. It’s that all-knowing, all-seeing gaze, like the eye of Mordor. Stiles feels tiny under its wrath, so he looks away and stares down at his beer can, traces the design with his thumb. “I know you, Stiles Stilinski.”“Not really. We only dated for, like, five months.”With a snort, totally uncharacteristic of her and something she would never do sober, she rolls her eyes. “Gee, I wonder why.”
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 357
Kudos: 1577





	1. Two Kisses

**Author's Note:**

> The elephant in the room is that I have discovered people are reposting my old fics on this website. I have tried to get them removed but to no avail - it’s sort of a massive bummer to me. The initial reason I deleted all my old fics instead of orphaning them as many recommended was because I did not want things that I spent mass amounts of time working on no matter how asinine they were to be out in the universe without being credited. I figured if people wanted to download copies of them, at least it would have my name on them. It’s important to me because while it is of all idiotic things on earth fan fiction for a long dead TV show, it’s still my writing. On the whole it was just exercise for me, but there are some really good bits even in my worst fics that I think I deserve the credit for. 
> 
> It’s kinda a mystery to me why anyone would want to post an old fic of mine on this site to begin with when, again, they’re all pretty easy to find via google. Beyond that, I deleted my whole account mostly on a whim. I do regret it now if only because I miss my bookmarks LMFAO! The point is, I really can’t seem to do anything about the fact that people are posting my old works. They stay up no matter who I email. I had planned for a while to come back and edit them (not all of them, but the good ones mainly) and repost them, because what harm would it really do? It’s good practice for me. 
> 
> In any event, this specific fic is one that I have been working on for a very long time. Back when I was actively writing it was a nugget of an idea, and then occasionally I’d come back to it and fuck with it because it’s a fun idea, and eventually I decided it was good enough to actually finish. As a result, a lot of it is very self-serving; anyone who has read one of my fics before knows the specific themes I tend to gravitate towards, and the kinds of things I like to make happen in my fics. If you’ve liked any of those, you’ll probably like this one. If you know what CRUEL SUMMER ENERGY means and you fuck with it...log on baby this one’s for you!!!!!! 
> 
> I don’t know what I plan to do beyond this. I just thought it might be nice to share my writing with other people again, especially considering the current circumstances of the world. If you’ve been reading my deleted fics, thanks for enjoying them! It’s cool to think about the things I wrote being in people’s lives even all these years later!!!

“You’re parked a little close, don’t you think?” 

Stiles unbuckles his seatbelt, pulling his keys out of the ignition with the familiar tinging and clinking of all his keychains rustling together. He assesses the distance between his car and the car next to his – narrowing his eyes as he takes in the shiny black paint job, the dent on the side from when Stiles had been thrown up against the door. The side mirror affixed with duct tape from another time when Stiles had shoved the car’s owner into it, snapping it clean off like a piece of spaghetti. 

“Not close enough,” he mutters, popping open his door. It immediately smacks into the adjacent car with a metallic thwap. “He’s the dick that can’t be fucked to park in the lines.” 

Scott seems uncomfortable. He looks to and fro, side to side, like he’s trying to think of an escape route. He always does that, whenever Stiles starts going off on this particular subject. It’s like he’s constantly searching for the emergency exit, or a fire alarm to pull. “Um…”

“Just come on,” Stiles is wedged in between the two car doors like cement between bricks. He can’t even get his backpack on. He barely managed to slide out of his own car – it’s a lucky thing, in this instance, he’s thin and nimble. Scott reluctantly begins to climb out. On his side, he’s got plenty of space. He puts his backpack on and slams the door behind him, shifting his eyes about like he’s expecting the boogeyman to leap out at them at any second. 

The boogeyman does not wind up appearing. What does show its face turns out to be much, much worse.

Stiles is side walking like a crab between the sardines of their two cars, backpack held up because there’s no room for it on his back, when he hears the crunch of footsteps coming his way. Scott hears it too. His antenna goes up, head whipping around. Hands up in the air, already, like he’s surrendering to the situation before it’s even gotten started. 

“Are you kidding me?” The voice is like nails on a chalkboard, to Stiles, for all its familiarity. “Are you actually _fucking_ kidding me?” 

“I’m not wearing my clown shoes today,” Stiles finally slides out from his crevice, stumbling a bit as he does so. When he rights himself, standing up to his full height, Derek Hale is there. Right there, like right the fuck there in his personal space bubble. He has this amazing habit of doing that, always has. “So, no.”

Derek looks at Stiles. He looks at their two cars. He looks at the sky. He looks at Stiles again. His jaw is twitching, ticking, the way it does whenever Stiles does something like this. Whenever Stiles looks at him or speaks to him or approaches him or does anything, anything at all really. He clenches his teeth, and his jaw ticks, and his eyes sharpen. “Do you see the way you’re parked?” 

Stiles looks back at his handiwork, as if he’d already forgotten. “I see.” 

“You see.”

“You haven’t managed to punch either of my eyes out of my face just yet, in spite of your best efforts,” he squares his shoulders, raising an eyebrow. 

Derek gestures to the cars again, forcefully, as if begging Stiles to take another look for himself. “You’re practically right up against it.” 

“Hey, I managed to get out, didn’t I?” 

Then, Derek gets that look on his face. It’s the look he gets whenever he’s about to say something particularly shitty. Stiles knows it well. “All twenty pounds of you, yeah.” 

Stiles huffs. Making weight means something to a fuckhead like Derek Hale who runs and plays football and lifts the weights that would otherwise accumulate dust in the boys locker room, but to Stiles, it’s nothing. Derek has said much, much worse things about the way Stiles looks, believe that, so it just goes over his head like wind rustling his hair, nothing more. “Don’t you have a homeroom to get to?” He starts walking. 

This makes Derek Hale angry. Most things do. 

Derek follows hot on Stiles’ footsteps, the hard _crunch crunch crunch_ in that particular way he always walks. Hard and fast, like an athlete. Stiles is more lackadaisical, backpack slung over his shoulder, legs long but lazy, so Derek catches up easily. “I’m never going to get out of that fucking spot without taking your mirror off, you know that.” 

“Eye for an eye,” Stiles drawls. Scott is there, sort of trailing along beside him with a nervous gait. He does not want a repeat of what happened last time – or the time before that, or before that one, or…on and on and on. “I take your mirror, you take mine, or was that not the plan to begin with?” 

“The _plan_?”

Stiles finally stops. Whips around, meets Derek’s eyes head on – this does not take Derek by surprise. Stiles is an eye contact person, and so is Derek. They have no problem staring at each other like this, no matter how much they might hate one another. They’ve stared at each other like this a million times before. Nearly chest to chest, at each other’s exact eye level, tension and years of previous experiences to make them angry at one another even without anything current to propel them into another fight. There’s always a reason for them to fight, whether the reason just happened, or happened the day before, or last month, or two years ago, or when they were just children on the playground. 

Derek Hale and Stiles have known each other since they were six and seven, respectively. Stiles’ father was a deputy and Derek’s mother was a defense attorney, so the interactions came up naturally whether either of the two adults liked it or not. In a lot of cases, Deputy Stilinski and Mrs. Hale did not get along quite so well. But the important distinction between those two and Derek and Stiles is that the former two were adults. Maybe they didn’t like each other, but they were cordial and said _how are you_ and _fine, thank you_ and forced smiles and made small talk, in the situations where it was warranted. 

Derek and Stiles were not adults. Still aren’t, as a matter of fact. If it was the tension that oozed off from their parents or the things either one of the adults might have said about the other within ear shot of their children, or something else entirely…it didn’t really matter. One day Stiles punched Derek in the nose at school, and the blood dripped out from between the cracks in the other boys’ fingers into the sand under their feet. That blood was like a christening, or a pact between them without either of their knowledge. 

The pact being that they were going to hate each other for the rest of their lives. A blood pact in its most organic form – their fates sealed. From that day forward, it was always something. It was always Derek stealing Stiles’ lunch money or even his lunchbox itself, throwing the peanut butter and jelly in the trash or smearing it on the wall. It was always Stiles breaking every crayon in Derek’s pencil box and laughing, while Scott nervously suggested that maybe they get rid of the evidence, at least. It was always Derek pushing Stiles into lockers, or Derek flipping Stiles’ lunch tray over so spaghetti ruined his favorite shoes, or Stiles doing nothing, nothing at all, and Derek punching him anyway. 

It’s always been like that. Neither of them can remember a time before hating each other, like it never existed. Like they both came out of the womb with this preternatural knowledge that their enemy was out there, somewhere, and their one job was to make the other’s life miserable at all costs. 

For Stiles and Derek, it’s a way of life. For Scott and Derek’s friends, it’s a nightmare they can’t wake up from, most likely. 

“You parked outside of the god damn lines knowing damn well I’d barely be able to get into my spot,” he points his finger, jabs it into Derek’s chest, “because you wanted to fight me.” 

Derek takes Stiles’ finger, pushes it away like he’s disgusted by it. Scott says, “maybe we should just move the car a little,” in that nervous tone of voice Stiles is familiar with. Both boys ignore it anyway. 

“I want nothing to fucking do with you,” Derek growls this, practically, getting even closer to Stiles’ face; for Christ’s sakes, they’re basically sharing the same breaths. “I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to talk to you, and I don’t want to fight you.” 

“Really?” Stiles’ eyebrows go up into his hairline. “That’s not the tune you were singing last week when you bashed my head into the lockers.” 

Both of Derek’s hands come up, and he uses his palms to shove Stiles back – as if Stiles was the one getting into _his_ space, and not the other way around. Stiles stumbles back, catches himself before falling completely, and Scott’s posture goes stiff. Not again, he’s probably thinking. Not uh-fucking-gain. “Move your car.” 

“You move _yours_!” Stiles points to the lines, where Derek’s shitty car is obviously veering over and where Stiles’ is perfectly perched in between the two. “You fucking need glasses if you think you’re not the problem, here!” 

“Maybe we should just inch it over a bit,” Scott suggests, again, and Stiles acts like he hasn’t spoken at all. So does Derek – who clenches his fists as if readying them for a punch. Stiles almost wishes he would. 

Says as much. “Hit me,” Stiles dares him, taunting in a low voice. “Hit me, fucking do it.”

“Nope,” Scott shakes his head and moves to get in between them. “Nope, nope, not here, not today, come on.” 

“Yeah?” Derek says. They’re close, again, chin to chin, eye to eye, toe to toe. 

Scott moves to grab Derek by the shoulder, maybe say something placating to him about how fighting at school is never a good idea, that if they want to fight can’t they do it on their own time and not on school property where there are consequences and people watching. People stopped, right now, frozen on their way to going to class in favor of getting their popcorn out to watch Stiles and Derek Hale go at it again. 

He never gets the chance to say anything, because Derek reacts to that hand like it’s poisonous, shoving it off of him violently and pushing Scott backwards, hard. “Give me one fucking reason, McCall –“ he starts to warn, and Stiles gets angry. 

Angry enough to hit first, throwing his fist out in a practiced, precise motion. Most kids don’t know how to fight very well when they’re just juniors in high school, but Stiles and Derek know how to fight. They learned early. Even if Stiles’ father had never taught him the basics of self defense, even if Derek wasn’t built like a truck, they’d have learned how to hurt each other. Some way, somehow. 

So, the hit connects hard. Makes a sound like flesh hitting bone, while Scott swears and throws his hand in the air in defeat. Derek doesn’t reach up to grab his face in pain – there’s no time for that in between him taking the hit and gearing up to deliver his own right back. 

Derek hits him so hard he sees stars for a second, grunting in pain and staggering back. The kid can throw a punch, of course he can – he’s fucking gigantic and Stiles is skinny and doesn’t spend his free time at the gym. Derek would wind up winning most of the fights, honestly, if they ever actually managed to get the opportunity to finish one. 

As it is, they start wrestling and swearing at each other, battling for the upper hand while kids laugh and point and roll their eyes. Stiles’ backpack winds up on the ground and Derek stomps on it as he puts Stiles in a choke hold, squeezing like a python in spite of Stiles’ flailing and punching him in the arm. 

Scott has got his hands on his hips when Mrs. Rose appears like a ghost out of thin air – she’s got her purse on and her scarf primly wrapped around her neck, as though she’s just driven up and parked and spotted the scene. “What’s going on here?” 

“What does it look like?” Derek snipes. He does not release Stiles, not one bit, so the best Stiles can do is cough and struggle to get free, all hope of managing to get another hit in completely lost. 

She gets close, heeled shoes clacking on the pavement and her hands held out. “Let him go, let him go right now,” she commands, and Derek abides instantly. On occasion, both of them have gotten so fucking angry at each other, wrestling and squabbling on the ground or throwing themselves around in the hallway that not even the threat of trouble has stopped them from continuing to beat each other senseless. Stiles half expected Derek to keep choking him out until Stiles went limp and passed out, even with Mrs. Rose’s protests. He’s surprised when he gets free, slumping to the ground and coughing. 

Mrs. Rose appraises them. The entire situation. Derek Hale standing there panting and wiping the blood off his face, Scott hovering in the background likely trying to decide if he’s going to run and pretend he had nothing to do with it, Stiles on the ground rubbing his neck. 

“Principal’s office,” she decides with finality, because what is she – a 4’11” 45 year old woman with a doctorate in history – going to do about a bunch of teenage boys fighting each other? “Right now. Up. Let’s go.” 

“Look at how he’s parked,” Derek starts up, spitting a wad of blood onto the pavement right by where Stiles is camped on the ground. Stiles recoils back and then immediately goes to kick Derek in the shin – Derek grunts and swears, lunging forward like he’s going to start choking Stiles all over again. 

“ _Enough_.” 

In the office, Stiles and Derek sit in chairs they’ve been in dozens of times before. They both glower, arms crossed over their chests, refusing to look at anything but their preferred spots on the floor to stare at. Mr. Keenan, in one of his festive Fall ties, is tapping his pen on his desk. Again and again. Tap tap tap tap. That’s the only sound in the room aside from the rustling of leaves as the wind blows outside the window. 

He knows them very, very well. Too well, Stiles would think. But not well enough to know what to do with them. 

“This is the third fight you two have been in since school started,” he says. Derek snorts, in this _yeah we fucking know_ type of way that’s so annoying Stiles wants to hit him again. If he weren’t in this situation right now, likely, he would be hitting Derek. Stiles always wants to hit Derek. It’s his automatic setting. “It’s only September.” 

“He parked like a complete jagweed this morning.”

“Jagweed,” Mr. Keenan repeats the word like it’s from a foreign language. Stiles bites his lip to keep from laughing. 

“I want a new assigned parking spot,” Derek pipes up, sitting up straighter. He’s got an eye turning black and blue around the edges, puffing up, and a split lip. Stiles can’t help but feel accomplished when he turns and sees it, the damage he’s done. Stiles has got a darkening eye, too, but that’s besides the point. “I cannot stand being anywhere near him, the fact that you assigned us side by side –“

“They’re assigned randomly,” Mr. Keenan pinches the bridge of his nose and then turns to look out the window. It’s this far, far away look, as though he’s imagining himself on a beach somewhere with a mai tai, or on a boat, or fuck it, in a prison cell. Anywhere but here, dealing with Derek and Stiles for the umpteenth time. “It was by complete happenstance that you two wound up right next to each other this year. You two wind up thrust together quite a bit.” 

“Since birth,” Derek grits out from between his teeth. 

He turns his swivel chair, giving them both critical looks. “You two ever spend any time wondering why that may be?” 

“Why what may be?” Stiles pokes at his eye, wincing. 

“Why you wind up in each other’s trajectory. Constantly.” 

Oh, has Stiles wondered why that could ever be. In elementary, out of the five grades they spent there, Derek and Stiles wound up in three of the same classrooms. In middle school they had gym together two years in a row and the class ended in skinned knees and black eyes and shouting matches more than half the time. Stiles’ freshman year it was lunch period food fights and history class debates that on occasion ended with one of them leaving the room in a huff. Stiles’ sophomore year it was French, where Derek would make fun of Stiles’ pronunciation and Stiles would remind him he’s the meathead who can’t even fucking spell. 

Now this year, it’s the parking spots and English class. At least Ms. Kirby has half a mind to not seat them anywhere near each other in that class. 

“God’s sick way of playing pranks on us, I guess,” Stiles says this mostly under his breath, but Mr. Keenan observes him seriously, like he’s thinking that might just be the case. 

“Be that as it may, this is a small town. This is a small school. You live within four blocks of each other. Your parents’ work overlaps. You share these hallways.” 

“Is there a point you’re getting at?” Derek shifts uncomfortably in his seat, looking out the window with a frown. “We’re late for first.” 

“My point, Mr. Hale, is that you seem to be unable to escape one another. Maybe it’s time you two learned to at least keep your distance, if not get along.” 

“The thing about that is-“

Stiles gets cut off with a sharp finger held in the air. He closes his mouth. “No one’s getting a new parking spot. No one’s switching classes as you’ve begged me in the past, no one’s getting a new lunch hour. You will learn to ignore each other and be the young adults this school has taught you to be.” 

Both boys start protesting over one another at the same time, sitting up straighter and whining about the indignity of it, the ridiculousness of it, but Mr. Keenan keeps right on going. 

“You’re eighteen now, Mr. Hale. You’ve got scholarships to think about – you want all that taken away because you can’t stop punching a childhood rival?” 

Derek goes quiet and says not a word, nothing. Barely reacts. Just silence and a frown. Stiles knows for a solid fact that if Derek Hale gets into Beacon it will be on nothing more than a football scholarship – because Stiles also knows for a solid fact that Derek would never be able to make the grades to get into that school for academics. It would be a full ride, because as much as Stiles hates Derek even he has to admit the kid is _good_ at playing ball, or at least, that’s what everyone says. It’s not like Stiles is lining up to go to those games. Stiles has to press his lips together to keep from laughing, imagining Derek getting denied a scholarship all because of Stiles. 

“And Stiles, your father is the Sheriff. You really want to get into trouble with something more serious than the principal of your high school over a petty fight with an older classmate?’ 

There’s never enough room in Stiles’ head for what his father thinks about Stiles and Derek’s hatred for one another. One time, the man opened up his front door on a Saturday morning and found the two boys rolling around on the front yard punching each other in the back again and again because Derek had been out for a morning run and Stiles had been collecting the paper. They made eye contact, briefly, and that was all it took. 

There have been lectures. There have been warnings about how one day, Derek is going to press charges and he’s got a hell of a good lawyer on his side and there’s not going to be anything that his father will be able to do to help him. 

Stiles purses his lips. He’s not laughing anymore. 

“Maybe it’s time you two thought about your futures instead of your useless disagreements about, most of the time, nothing at all.” 

Nothing at all. He can’t have any idea how right he is, about that. Nothing at all. 

“If I catch you two fighting one more time,” he warns, pointing at each of them individually for seconds on end, “it’ll be suspension. With your need for scholarships Mr. Hale, and with your perfect record Mr. Stilinski, neither of you can afford it. Think about that, next time.” 

Stiles and Derek meet eyes, for just the briefest of seconds. There’s nothing there that means anything, in the eye contact. It’s furtive and quick, two scolded kids sharing the scolding together. 

“Okay,” Stiles agrees at the same time Derek does. 

When they walk out of the office, Derek adjusts the straps on his backpack and makes like he’s going to dart off quickly to his own class (History with Mrs. Rose, as luck would have it for him), but Stiles stops him with a _hey_. 

Standing there with his black eye and bruising neck, Stiles clutches the strap of his bag as Derek turns and meets his eyes. Derek shrugs, holding his arms out like _what_? 

“Don’t do shit to provoke me, man,” he warns, shaking his head. “You know my grades and clean record are important to me, not everyone’s got a 500 dollar an hour lawyer for a mother. I can’t afford Beacon any other way.” 

Derek stares at him. Stares and stares. His jaw starts doing that thing again, that thing that Stiles hates hates hates, maybe more than anything about him. “Not everyone’s got the grades to get into Beacon otherwise,” he says back, voice low and even. 

They stare. It’s different from the eye contact they share when they’re fighting, different by a long shot. There’s tension there, but it’s not the tension of two people about to explode. It’s the tension of two people who have reached an impasse, a bridge they cannot get off of. A bridge over an angry river, where either one of them could push the other off to their demise. 

There’s nothing more to be said. Those are the reasons they have for avoiding one another from here on out, and they’re good and solid reasons – so they both just turn and walk away without another word. 

They don’t know how to talk to each other, really. They never actually learned.

**

In third period when Stiles finally sees Scott again, sitting in his usual seat and jiggling his leg up and down, the only thing Scott wants to hear about is what happened in the principal’s office. If Stiles or Derek got detention, if they’re going to get suspended, what Mr. Keenan said, what Derek said, and on and on.

“He warned us,” Stiles says, taking his notebook out and opening it up to the last page of his notes with a twist to his mouth. “He said if he caught us fighting again he’d suspend us.” 

“Dude,” Scott leans over the bar of his desk, into the aisle between his and Stiles’ seats – he looks very serious. It’s an odd expression to see on his face. “You cannot afford to get a suspension.” 

“I know that,” he clicks his pen and leans back in his seat, glaring down at his notes. The top of the page is filled with his neat and prim handwriting, the bottom half empty and waiting for him to write more. 

“You’ll never be able to afford Beacon without that scholarship, and you can’t get it if you –“

“Man, I know,” he sighs, shaking his head. “I know, I fucking know. And Derek can’t afford to lose his athletic scholarship because he doesn’t have the grades.” 

Scott blinks at him. He’s applying to Beacon too, so he knows what the standards are like. Scott has got the grades and the extracurriculars to probably get in, but he’s also applying to places in Southern California and a state school in New York because he isn’t sure if he wants to leave the state or not. He’ll get in to one of his three choices, and has got nothing to worry about. 

Stiles is banking it all on Beacon. He knows he can get in with his squeaky clean transcripts and his perfect grades and his long list of extracurriculars, and he even more knows he can get that full ride if he just keeps his head down and focuses on the work. 

“I see,” Scott says, leaning back in his own desk. “So you guys can’t really get away with fighting anymore.” 

“Nope,” he lets his lips pop on the p. 

He’s quiet for only another moment longer. Across the classroom, Stiles feels eyes on the back of his neck, and when he looks over his shoulder he finds Seth Turner staring at him. They meet eyes, and Stiles’ cheeks get hot and he quickly looks away. He shakes it off immediately and clears his throat, just in time for Scott to start talking again. 

“You know what? It’s about time. It’s about damn time you two grew up, no offense,” none taken, Stiles thinks, because he knows it’s true. “But I mean, come on. He’s going to college next year and you’ve got way too much on your plate to focus on something like him anymore. It’s…I dunno. It’s time to grow up, that’s all.” 

Stiles clicks his pen, again and again – looks over his shoulder at Seth, who’s looking right back at him. They hold each other’s eye contact for as long as they think they can get away with it, for as long as no one notices, and Seth gives him a self-assured smile. 

If only Scott knew exactly how much Stiles had on his plate. There really isn’t a lot of room left for Derek, anymore. “It’s not easy to just stop hating someone, you know,” he says, finally looking away from Seth to give his attention back to Scott. 

“You can keep on hating him all you want. Maybe learn to be an adult about it.” 

Their French teacher stands from his desk and adjusts his glasses, the surefire sign that the bell is about to ring and class is about to start. The stragglers who either have class all the way across campus or just linger in the hallways too long file in one by one, and Stiles tries to ignore Seth’s laser-eyes as he feels them like fingers on his skin. 

“I mean, shit. Your guys’ parents fucking can’t stand each other, and they manage to not get into fist fights in the court room every other week.”

Right, because they’re adults. Maybe Stiles’ dad calls Mrs. Hale a spineless snake, and probably Mrs. Hale calls the Sheriff a donut loving pig, but that’s all behind closed doors. They’re professionals. Grown adults, with grown up jobs, who smile and make small talk when they’re in the same room together. 

“Yeah,” he agrees, as their teacher starts scribbling on the white board and the bell rings above their heads. “Derek and I should really learn a thing or two from them.” 

Scott seems pleased with this, more pleased than he’s looked when discussing Derek in…years, honestly. Typically, whenever Scott suggests that maybe Derek and Stiles stop fighting, Stiles gets even angrier than he was to begin with. 

Now, though, this tired feeling settles in the pool of Stiles’ gut. Tired of fighting, tired of being angry all the time, tired of having so much on his mind – which of those it is, Stiles isn’t sure. But it’s tired, and he’s tired, and he knows Seth is still looking at him, and he’s just…

“Now that there’s room in your head to think about it,” Scott lowers his voice to a whisper because class has started, “Erica Reyes is totally staring at you, man.” 

Stiles has noticed Erica staring at him, before. In this class and in lunch, specifically, and he knows exactly what kind of a stare it is. It’s the same stare that Seth gives him, the same set to the eyes, the same wry smile, the same shy blush. 

The difference is, when Stiles looks back at Erica, he doesn’t feel very much. He catches her eye, looks away with no reaction, and then shrugs at Scott with a tight smile. “She sure is.”

**

In the hallway sometime during fifth period, Stiles flashes his hall pass from his English teacher up in the air as he passes the hall monitor – a brown-nosing know it all named Freddy Highmore. Stiles can’t stand him because no one else can stand him. As they pass each other, Freddy gives him this look like there’s no one on planet earth he hates more than Stiles, which Stiles actually knows isn’t true.

There’s truly no one on earth that Freddy hates more than Derek. Derek is mean, so everyone says. Stiles has got a bias so his own opinion on Derek being a dick means next to nothing to most people, but everyone agrees with each other that Derek is just…fucking _mean_. He’s not a bully, not in the strictest truest sense, but he’s not nice. 

A couple of girls on the cheerleading squad, spurned lovers from underneath the bleachers Stiles is sure of it, turn their noses up at the sheer mention of a Derek Hale. Stiles has often wondered what it was that did it for all those ex-girlfriends of his; the hair gel, the car, the dick attitude, the holier-than-thou, the money, the arrogance? All of it, at once? 

The point being, he’s got a reputation for being snide and rude. He likely walks this hall without a hall pass constantly, and Freddy tries to stop him and Derek laughs and tells him to shove a calculator up his ass. Since everyone in this school fears the jocks on principle alone, it’s not like Freddy would ever rat him out – so to Freddy, Derek is likely the ghost that haunts the halls. No exorcism in the world could get rid of him. 

You’d think Freddy would find solidarity with Stiles because of their mutual hatred for Derek, but then again, Freddy has separate reasons for hating Stiles. Stiles is the one who has, four semesters in a row now, taken the coveted top spot in their class by a hair. Like, a quarter of a point. It’s the kind of thing Freddy likely writes in his _bad thoughts_ journal. 

As it is, Freddy glares and looks closely at the hall pass to assure its validity. Then, without another word, he stalks off. It’s hilarious to see someone wearing a bright orange vest that might as well be covered in neon lights reading NERD walking with that much conviction, so Stiles smirks as he watches him go. 

Back on task, Stiles heads for the supply closet tucked off to the side near the entrance to the gym. He can hear sneakers squeaking and hollering, the tell-tale sign of basketball being played, glances as he walks past the door. Scott is there, grinning from the sidelines waiting for his turn on the court, stretching out his arm as he talks to a traditionally somber Isaac Lahey. 

Stiles and Isaac don’t hate each other. But Isaac is Derek’s good friend, and so they avoid one another. Scott, however, has always liked Isaac and will proudly admit that they’re friends whenever Stiles has brought it up. It’s one of those no-no subjects they just don’t really breach. 

Using the key Ms. Kirby gave him, hanging on a ring alongside a grinning Cheshire cat, he opens up the supply closet door and flicks on the light hanging over his head. The lightbulb drifts around in the air from side to side for a moment as Stiles takes in the sight of shelves upon shelves of pens, notepads, planners that teachers use, spare computers piled up in the corner collecting dust. 

As he’s searching for a box of dry erase markers per request, squatting down near the shelf Ms. Kirby said they would be hiding on, he hears the shuffle of clothing behind him – someone else is in here with him. 

He turns his head and meets eyes with Seth. For only the fourth time today, they share each other’s eye contact for what should be an uncomfortably long moment. And it is uncomfortable. It’s charged. 

Stiles swallows a lump in his throat. “Uh, you get sent on a mission as well?” 

Seth steps further into the closet, closer to where Stiles is perched there low to the ground. “Sure did,” he says. His voice is low, deeper in timber. He’s in a poetry group, one of the clubs on campus that Stiles has never had much of an interest in. But Stiles knows that Seth goes to poetry club because he reads poetry on the morning announcements and is constantly trying to recruit likeminded individuals to come in and share their own work. Stiles doesn’t know why he cares about this detail, why it matters – it just…is. Seth is in poetry club. Stiles isn’t really interested in that.

They’re both standing here in the supply closet, looking at one another.

“Uh,” Stiles says again, looking back to the boxes of pens and pencils before him. “Just looking for dry erase markers. You?” 

“Erasers,” he says, simply. He walks a bit further in, past where Stiles is crouched, so his shadow crosses over Stiles’ back. “You’ve heard the rumors about me, I assume.” 

This is not a statement that follows the tone of their conversation. It’s not on theme at all. It comes out of nowhere, like a shotgun boom in the middle of the night. 

“Uh…” Stiles feels sweaty. His hands clam up and he stands back up to his full height, wiping his palms on his jeans. “Like, about how you juggle? I don’t –“ nervous laughter, bubbling up without Stiles’ consent, “I don’t care if you wanna go to clown college.” 

This makes Seth laugh – genuine, full, not nervous at all. “You are very funny.” 

“Not really,” he disagrees. Other people have told him they think he’s funny before, but for some reason, Seth saying he’s funny is different from when other people say it. 

“Those are not the rumors I was referring to,” he steps closer to Stiles. It reminds Stiles, bizarrely, of when Derek steps close to him. It’s similar, but it’s not the same, not at all, and Stiles cannot for the life of him imagine why he’s thinking about Derek at a time like this. “I’m talking about how you know that I’m gay.” 

“Oh,” Stiles voice feels tight. “Oh, yeah. Which is totally cool. I’m cool with it.” 

Seth raises his eyebrows. 

“Are other people…” he has to look down at his hands. He finds a loose piece of skin around one of his nails and picks at it, fixates on it, feels miniscule. “Are other people being cool?” 

Seth shrugs. Every movement he makes is dangerous, to Stiles. “Half and half. People are shitty, but not everyone is, but some people still are. You know how it is.” 

“I don’t, actually.”

“My whole thing is that you never knew I existed until, you know,” he steps closer again, and Stiles remembers when Derek had been that close just earlier this morning. “…this September. When I came to school and everyone knew I was gay because I had come out. You never noticed me, before.” 

“You did the poetry thing on the announcements,” Stiles says this like it’s an argument, but it isn’t, it’s nothing, and Seth knows it, so he ignores it like Stiles had never spoken to begin with. 

“What I’m saying is, you had no interest in me until you found out I was gay. At first I thought you looked at me because you’re homophobic.” 

Nervous laughter. “I’m not –“

“No, I know that now. I know why you look at me.” 

“I don’t really look at you.” 

“I think you want to kiss me, is all.” 

Stiles feels the lump in his throat come back, and he looks away. He squats right back down and clears his throat frantically, because he’s afraid to speak and have his voice be choked up, because it’d be evidence for Seth to find. He begins to paw almost desperately through the boxes of other writing utensils that aren’t the ones he’s looking for. “You don’t know where the dry erase markers are, do you?” 

Then, Seth is down at his level, squatting with him and fixing his dark eyes directly on the side of Stiles’ face. It feels like physical contact, like it always does when Seth looks at him – because he shoots contact out of his eyes like fingers, somehow. This all-knowing gaze, that sees right through to Stiles’ very center. “You know, it’s cool to be confused and it’s cool to not know what the hell is going on…”

Stiles fumbles a box of pencils, so it breaks open and sends them scattering across the floor, all around both of their feet in slow rolls that eventually come to stops. 

“I don’t care if you don’t know. I’m not asking you to tell me anything. I’m just asking if you want to kiss me, because I think you do. I just think you’re wondering something, or asking a question. When you look at me, like…” he moves closer. His breath is warm on Stiles’ cheek, because Stiles won’t look directly at him, can’t, for the life of him. “…you want to ask me. It’s just a kiss.” 

Stiles clenches his hands into his fists, and fight or flight response kicks in automatically. But the truth is, that he doesn’t want to fight, and he doesn’t want to run either. He wants to stay right here in this cramped little room with all the pencils on the floor and he wants to…kiss a boy. Any boy. 

He stands up straight and rubs at his eyes. It hurts, from when Derek punched him earlier, but he keeps rubbing because it’s something to do with his hands, he guesses. A long beat of silence passes after Seth stands up straight, too. Seth is taller than Stiles by maybe a couple of inches, at most, so they’re nearly at eye level, but just shy of it. “I uh,” he begins, and wants to punch himself for how stupid he sounds and how stupid he feels. “I don’t know if I’m – or what.” 

“Okay.”

“And I don’t – I haven’t told anyone that I don’t really…girls are,” he shrugs, like that’s all the explanation in the world, and Seth seems to get it. Of course he would. But Stiles doesn’t want to relate to him, yet, because he’s not ready to, but he could…

“That’s not really the question I asked,” Seth shakes his head. “I asked if you wanted to kiss me, that’s all. Do you want to?” 

“Um,” Stiles twiddles his fingers. “I don’t like you like that, I don’t think.”

“That’s also not what I asked.” 

Finally, Stiles gets brave enough to look into Seth’s eyes. They’re alone in here, but Stiles can hear the squeaking of sneakers seeping in through the walls. Scott is on the other side of this wall, somewhere, talking to Isaac Lahey and dribbling a ball and having no idea, none whatsoever, his best friend is in here about to kiss another boy. 

Stiles doesn’t know what Scott would say if he found out. Or what his father would say. Or anyone. He wonders what shitty things that Seth has heard said about himself, or said directly to him, or behind his back as he walks through the hallways. Stiles wonders that a lot. Too much. 

“Okay,” Stiles agrees. His voice doesn’t sound like his own, like it’s coming from someone else, or like his body is taking over and controlling the narrative now. Living out the thoughts in his head that he shoves to the background most of the time, drifting and hiding along the outskirts of everything he does. 

Seth leans forward, inch by inch, holding Stiles’ eye contact until they get too close. When their lips meet, it’s soft, like butterfly wings touching. Then, they kiss again. Quick pecks, hesitant, like Seth isn’t sure how much Stiles wants him to do and like Stiles doesn’t know either. They pull back and Seth looks at him. 

“I don’t like you like that, you know,” Stiles says again, just to drill it into Seth’s head. “I just…” 

“I’ll take any opportunity to kiss a good-looking boy,” Seth shrugs. “I don’t think I like you like that either.” 

“Okay,” Stiles agrees, and Seth agrees back, and then they’re kissing again. This time, it’s not a quick peck. Seth puts his hand on Stiles’ chest and leans into him, deepening the kiss. Stiles backs up into the shelves so everything on them rustles, puts his hand on Seth’s hip.

Stiles has kissed girls before – three, to be exact. He’s put his hand on a girls’ hip before, too. This is…not that. It’s not that at all. This is new territory. And just like Stiles always knew, always knew in the back of his mind, this is better. This is actually what he wants. 

They kiss, for maybe ten more seconds, flush up against each other in the dim lighting, before the door opens. Quickly, light from the hallway spills across their faces, and they don’t pull apart in time. Whoever’s standing there just saw Stiles making out with a boy and he’s frantic in his haste to push Seth away from him and stand up straight, turning to try and look casual even though the damage has been done. 

It’s Derek Hale. Hall pass clenched in his hand, holding the door open, stuck frozen still. Derek Hale has just seen Stiles kissing Seth. Derek Hale has just seen Stiles kissing another boy. 

“Whoops,” Seth says, looking at an imaginary watch on his wrist. “Better get back to class.” 

He skirts past Derek, and Derek doesn’t move. He just stands there and stares, stares, right at Stiles. His brow is furrowed, his posture stiff – it’s like he cannot believe what he just saw, needs time to process it. Stiles feels like a deer in headlights, for how unable he is to move. Completely stupefied. This is his worst nightmare. 

He’s imagined Scott finding out and recoiling and wondering if at all those sleepovers they had over the many years of their friendship Stiles jerked off to the thought of him while he was asleep, kissed him without his consent. He’s imagined his father being disappointed that his only son is a faggot, that he’ll have to take barbs from his deputies for the rest of his life about his gay son. He’s imagined the entire school laughing at him and beating him up and he’s imagined losing his scholarship, of all things. He’s thought of all the worst case scenarios, before, because Seth is not the first boy he’s ever thought about kissing. 

But this tops them all. Derek Hale. Derek fucking Hale. Resident asshole. Rich playboy son of one of the most powerful families in Beacon Hills. Biggest dick on the football team. Stiles’ worst enemy. 

Of course it would be him. Of course it would. 

“You dated Lydia Martin,” Derek says. This is what he says. It’s like he’s trying to wrap his brain around it. Stiles dated the prettiest girl in school last year, so there’s no way he could be in the supply closet kissing Seth fucking Turner. Stiles fucks girls. 

“What are you doing here?” Stiles demands, and he feels like crying. Bursting into hysterical tears and running away – but that would be worse. It would be worse to do that. 

Derek’s jaw works. It ticks. Stiles wants to pull his hair out. “Ms. Kirby sent me to see if you got lost. You’ve been gone for fifteen minutes.” His voice is very, very even. It’s like a robot is speaking to him, as opposed to Derek, like he’s running his brain functions on autopilot. 

“There’s no dry erase markers in here,” he snaps, and crosses his arms over his chest uncomfortably. It’s protective, defensive. This isn’t normally how he is around Derek, curling in on himself like he’s small, but he can’t help it. “I’m going back to class.” 

He pushes past Derek and into the hallway, where the air feels less stifled, and walks as fast as he can without it seeming like he’s trying to run away. Derek stays behind – Stiles knows because he hears no following footsteps. Stiles doesn’t look behind him, so he doesn’t know if Derek is still standing in the exact same spot as before, or if he’s moved, or anything. Stiles just keeps going. 

Back in class, Stiles returns the key and says he doesn’t think there are any more markers left. Ms. Kirby shrugs it off, like no big deal. Stiles sits. 

It’s twenty seconds later Derek is back. He walks in, looks at Stiles for only a second, and then looks away. 

Derek sits down and says nothing.

**

“I got a call from the principal at school today,” Stiles’ father says at the dinner table, looking down his glasses at him. They’re eating lasagna, Stiles’ mom’s secret recipe, because it’s Friday and they always do a special dinner on Friday evenings before his father has to go in for the night shift. There’s garlic bread and Stiles’ favorite salad and the lasagna always tastes just like it used to – tonight, he’s barely even picking at his plate. He swirls some cheese around with his fork, shrugging.

When no response comes, his father sighs and takes his glasses all the way off, eyeballing him. “Another fight with Derek Hale.” 

Stiles shrugs again. “That kid is a jackass.” 

“Be that as it may,” Stiles’ father has never once said a kind word about Derek, but he’s also never gone out of his way to say something unkind about him either, “aren’t you two getting a little too old for this?” 

The mention of Derek brings intrusive thoughts. He thinks about Derek calling his father and saying guess what Sheriff, your son’s a faggot, a giant faggot, so I guess that makes me and my family better than yours after all. “We’re not gonna fight anymore, dad.” 

“I’ve heard that before,” he argues, wagging his finger. 

“Well, this time it’s for real. There’s a lot at stake for both of us, now, so we’re just gonna…” he slices off a bite of his lasagna with no intention of eating it, just cuts it up with his fork again and again, preoccupied with it. “…avoid each other.” 

“Hmm.” He’s critically examining Stiles, now, the way only a parent can. The way Stiles hasn’t eaten a single thing, the way he got home and immediately stormed up to his room to brood in the dark, that he’s already in his pajamas and it’s only six o’clock on a Friday night. Stiles’ plans for the night are hiding under his covers, hiding from the world, dreading Monday morning when he’ll walk into school and everyone will know he’s gay when he’s not even sure if that’s the right word yet, because Derek might not be able to punch him anymore, but psychological warfare is always on the table. 

“Is everything okay? Did Derek do something…?” 

“Derek Hale always does something, dad,” Stiles takes a sip of his milk just for something to do. “Look, I’m not very hungry, can I be excused?”

“No, you may not,” there’s finality there in his tone, so Stiles slumps down and pouts. “You’re going to sit there and eat your dinner and tell me what’s the matter with you.” 

Stiles’ father has always been no-nonsense. Especially after Stiles’ mother died, and he had to learn how to be two parents at once. Even with all the help Melissa could give, there was still a hole that needed to be filled, and Stiles’ father became overbearing and obsessive and did things like go through Stiles’ room when he wasn’t home, read Stiles’ texts, this that and the other thing. 

It didn’t take him more than a year to learn that was called bad parenting, and he stopped. Eased up a whole lot. But that doesn’t mean he became the chill, cool dad. He’s still a cop, and he seriously acts like it, even at home. 

“Look, I had a shit day. Derek Hale is a dick and – I don’t know,” he stares at the mush of food on his plate and wishes he could disappear. “I’m worried about my scholarships and fucking everything up, I guess. Just because of Derek Hale.” 

That seems like an acceptable answer, so his dad nods his head and swallows the bite of food he has in his mouth before speaking. “Well, kid, you can’t control someone like Derek Hale – but you can control your own actions, right?” 

A stone sinks in Stiles’ gut. No, Stiles can’t control what Derek will do with the information he gathered today in the supply closet. He can’t control what Scott will say, or the jocks, or Lydia when she learns why Stiles was never very good in bed, or…anyone. It will be horrible, and he knows it, and word will get back to his father, and he doesn’t know what he’s going to do. 

It was just one kiss. One stupid kiss. 

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees. He takes one bite, maybe just to placate his father. “I hate Derek Hale.” 

“I don’t very much care for his mother, either,” he shrugs. “Life goes on.” 

The weekend passes by in a haze. Stiles has a hard time sleeping at night, staying up playing video games long past the time he’s allowed to be up, even on weekends. He lays in bed and stares at the ceiling and imagines everyone’s faces when they hear he made out with Seth in the supply closet. He imagines the story getting twisted, Derek lying and laughing and telling everyone they jerked each other off, that Stiles always tried to grab Derek’s dick whenever they fought each other, that the fighting was all just sexual frustration on Stiles’ end. That Stiles is a freak, that he’s sick. 

Not even Seth will want anything to do with him. He tosses and turns and stares out the window at the full moon, feeling tiny. A speck of dust on a floating rock in the middle of the universe. 

When Monday morning comes, Stiles’ alarm goes off and he’s already awake, staring at his ceiling with a pounding heart and a tight chest. It’s the 21st century, he reminds himself in the shower. Other kids at school are gay. 

Well. It’s just Seth, who’s been absorbing ridicule for the past two months since he came out, and then Shana who Stiles heard is bisexual. But then, Stiles only thinks that because he heard she made out with one of her friends at a party and everyone took pictures and spread them around. Stiles doesn’t know if she’s gay or bi or what – all he knows is that now she has a boyfriend. 

That’s not a very big crowd of peers. Not a very good support system at all. Stiles gets into his car and starts the engine, pressing his forehead into the steering wheel. It was just one fucking kiss. It was experimental. Seth won’t say anything about how Stiles basically admitted to not liking girls at all, he won’t, he’s not that shitty of a person. Not even close. 

When Scott opens up the passenger door, the first thing he says is, “dude, you won’t believe what Isaac told me.” 

Immediately, Stiles grips the steering wheel, white knuckling it so hard he’s amazed it doesn’t crack. 

“They’re opening a new pizza place, like, three blocks from your house.” 

Stiles’ grip relaxes, but his heart rate stays sky high. “Oh,” he clears his throat. “Uh –“

“We could be in walking distance of pizza and pasta before Summer starts. Isn’t that awesome?” 

“We could also always just order delivery from any one of the other four pizza places in town,” he looks at his hands as they’re stopped at an intersection, sucks in a deep breath. It’s possible the news just hasn’t gotten to Scott yet, he figures. It’s not like Scott runs in the same circles as Derek, not including Isaac. 

“You’re not as into this as I am,” Scott accuses, pointing a finger in his direction. 

“I am,” he promises, “but what this town needs is a Thai place. Not more pizza.”

“I’ll give you that one,” Scott puts his hands up in surrender, “I’m pretty sick of having to drive all the way to Rosemont just for some pad thai. I mean, I’ll do it. But I don’t like that I have to.” 

The conversation is normal for the rest of the drive to school, and when they pull up, Stiles is relieved to see that Derek’s car isn’t parked there. He’s not at school yet – Stiles has beat him to the punch. The relief is short lived, however, because it’s only seconds after Stiles has unbuckled and leaned over to pop open his door that the sleek black car Derek received for his sixteenth birthday pulls in, catching the sun as it does so. 

Stiles grits his teeth as he looks at the duct tape work on the side mirror. His mother had refused to pay to get it fixed because he had lied and said it was an accident that took it off – not Stiles throwing him into the side of it. She apparently said he needed to learn responsibility. Stiles used to laugh every time he saw it. Now, not even a chuckle. 

He steps out and tries to keep his shoulders squared, even as Derek climbs out at the same time. They meet eyes over the hood of the car. Derek’s jaw does that ticking thing that Stiles hates, and Stiles doesn’t know how to act. If he should act angry, or if he should pretend Derek doesn’t exist, or if he should act nice to gain Derek’s favor. 

He wants to scream and ask him if he’s going to tell anyone, that he doesn’t know what he saw, that Stiles isn’t sure what he was doing. That he’ll do anything, if Derek just doesn’t tell anyone. 

But Scott is right there, so Stiles can say nothing. They just stare at one another, until Stiles has to look away and start walking away, toward where Scott is waiting for him outside of the parking space. Derek keeps staring. Stiles feels the eyes. 

“Jesus,” Scott says once Stiles is in ear shot. He’s got his own eyes on Derek, but they slowly slide over to his friend as they start walking towards the back doors of the school. “What the fuck is that look for?” 

“It’s no different than the way he usually looks at me,” Stiles mutters under his breath. He can hear Derek’s footsteps trailing behind them, and he wants to scream. 

“Uh, yeah it is.” Scott glances over his shoulder. Stiles has no idea what he must see there, none whatsoever, but Scott turns back with a frown on his face. “Did something happen between you guys again?” 

Stiles remembers the light from the hallway shining across Seth and Stiles’ faces, the fact that their lips were still locked and Derek saw the whole thing. The look on Derek’s face. 

“Nothing since Friday morning.” 

They walk up the steps, past a gaggle of Derek’s jock friends all hovering about in their letterman jackets, laughing and making assholes out of themselves. Stiles’ shoulders tighten when he hears Derek greet them, and he can’t help but look over his shoulder. 

Derek is still looking at him. 

Every class that goes by, every time Stiles spills into the hallway with everyone else, he imagines that the news has gotten out. Derek has told his popular friends and it’s filtering through the school – but it never happens. The bell rings and Stiles walks out into the hallway and everyone either ignores him or says hi. Like everything’s normal. Like nothing happened. 

In English class, Derek sits in his assigned seat all the way across the room and he looks out the window. He doesn’t look smug, he doesn’t look like the cat who got the cream, or like someone who’s been spreading vicious rumors all day. He just sits and stares out that window, head in the clouds, not taking a single note. It’s bizarre, if nothing else. 

When the day is done and nothing has happened, Stiles becomes convinced Derek Hale is going to use this piece of information to blackmail him. He’s going to taunt Stiles with it, use it to get Stiles to do his bidding, or something even worse than that. It’s gotta be that – why else would Derek have not told anyone by now? Why else? 

Scott occasionally rides the bus home with Allison if they plan on spending the afternoon together – so when Stiles walks out to the parking lot after the final bell and Derek is leaning against the hood of his car with his arms crossed like he’s waiting for Stiles, they’re alone. 

Stiles picks his keys out of his pocket and thinks about ignoring him, walking right past and getting in his car and never speaking to him again, because he’s too afraid of this conversation. He thinks about it very seriously. 

But then, he stops right next to where Derek is perched, and looks away. Squinting at the sun. “Look,” Stiles starts, refusing to look at Derek directly. “What you saw, man, it…” 

“What I saw,” Derek repeats, lifting one eyebrow. God, Stiles can’t fucking stand this smug piece of shit. 

Earlier in the day, Stiles had entertained the thought of telling a lie. A bad one. He thought about laughing, if he were confronted by Derek or someone else. He thought about laughing and laughing and saying something like oh yeah, that weird freak just jumped on me and started kissing me, haha, fucking weird faggot, am I right? 

But not even Stiles is that low. He can’t tell that lie. He just can’t. 

He shifts from foot to foot, unsteady. “I dunno,” is what he chooses to say. It’s the truth, in some weird, twisted cosmic way. He doesn’t know. 

Derek looks up at the sky. At his feet. Then, right at Stiles. “Is he your – you know.” 

“No,” Stiles scoffs, and then quickly backtracks. “Not that it’s so ridiculous. He’s nice and all. Um. I just don’t think – I don’t know.” 

“And Scott,” Derek turns his body, so he’s facing Stiles head on. “He’s not –“

“Scott doesn’t know,” he squares his shoulders, as though this doesn’t make him ashamed. It does. “No one…no one knows. I don’t, uh…look man.” He steps forward, nervous, and Derek gives him this look that Stiles can’t say he’s ever given Stiles before. Can’t put a name on it, even. “I’ll…I’ll do just about anything to keep you from telling people that I – because I don’t know what’s going on. It’s not –“

“Jesus,” Derek interrupts. He stands taller, and he looks angry. Now that, Stiles thinks, is the Derek Hale that he knows. “How much of a piece of shit do you think that I am?” 

Stiles blinks at him. “You want an answer to that question?” 

Derek scoffs, shakes his head, looks away. “No,” he frowns, looks angry again. “No, I’m guessing that I don’t.” He mutters something under his breath and turns to get to his driver’s side door. When he gets his hand on it, he pauses and looks at Stiles the same way he had this morning – over the hood of his car, frowning, pensive. “I’m not that much of a piece of shit, how about. No matter what you think about me or my family –“

“The family thing again, come on,” Stiles rolls his eyes. 

“I would never do that.” He opens the door, stops again. “I’m not the fuckbag that you’ve always thought of me as.” Then, he gets in and the engine revs. 

Stiles is left standing there, knuckles turning white from clutching the straps of his backpack, while Derek breaks the speed limit driving off and away from him.

**

“Are you coming?”

Stiles startles from where he’s hovering with his locker door open, nearly fumbling the piece of paper he has in his hands down to the ground. He had found it tucked neatly into his locker through one of the slats, neon pink with big black letters reading BYOB and PARTY among other things – like time, location, etcetera. 

Lydia Martin is standing there, cocking her head to the side, looking him up and down. It’s a funny thing that they used to know each other rather intimately – because now, they never speak. Hi and bye, for the most part. 

They didn’t even have that bad of a breakup. It was mutual and it needed to happen. Stiles guesses that the issue was that Lydia never really quite understood why it needed to happen, only that it did. And that Stiles knew exactly why, but that he never gathered up the stones to tell her himself. She perhaps rated the truth from him. But that seems like spilled milk, now.

Because now, she’s standing there with her eyebrows raised, waiting for an answer to her question. “To the party?” She clarifies when Stiles is silent for long enough. 

“Um,” he looks at the flyer again. He hasn’t gone to a party at Lydia’s house since last year, before they broke up. Way before Summer vacation, all the way before the spring dance. He had gotten more drunk than he’s ever been at the last one, where phase one of their break up officially launched. Lydia should remember that. It’s a wonder he’s even been invited to this one. “I guess I have to.” 

“You sure do,” she looks him up and down again, that same way she always has. Back when they were dating Stiles found it somewhat flattering. Now, he finds it unsettling. Like she’s searching for answers written somewhere on his skin. “You haven’t been.”

“I haven’t been invited.”

She rolls her eyes. “Your invites were always, you know,” she waves her hand fruitlessly, “implied. You’re always invited.” 

Uncomfortable in the situation with her eyes on him like this, he shifts a bit and shrugs. “Well, I’ll come to this one. Scott can come, I assume.” 

Lydia does not like Scott. This was made crystal clear to both Scott and Stiles when Lydia and Stiles were dating. Not like it ever stopped Scott from third wheeling with them nearly constantly, which come to think of it is likely another reason he and Lydia stopped dating. But just one of many. 

Her lips purse, which Stiles had expected. But she still says, “fine,” in that clipped tone of voice Stiles used to know very well. “You know, it’s been a while since I’ve heard anything about you and Derek Hale. Did you guys finally kiss and make up?” 

The word choice has Stiles reeling for a moment, so his cheeks turn pink and he can’t help but to look back down at the flyer just so Lydia can’t catch his eyes. Truth be told, Stiles has been avoiding that boy like he’s infected with the black plague. He gets to school ten, fifteen, sometimes even thirty minutes earlier than he’s ever been before just to beat Derek to the parking lot so they don’t have to see each other. He never looks up from his notes in English class. If they cross paths in the hallway, Stiles pretends to be studiously glaring at a text message or something else more interesting on his phone. 

Derek, for his part, says nothing. Does nothing. Floats on the outskirts of Stiles’ reality. And he has still not said a single word, not to anyone, about what he saw in the supply closet that day. 

“Derek and I decided maybe it was time to grow up,” he says, which is ambiguous and avoidant, and Lydia knows that. She tends to know everything.

Most everything, at least. 

“Huh,” she shrugs. “See you at the party.” 

Off she goes, while Stiles is left staring after her before looking back down at the flyer. A party at Lydia Martin’s house sounds like a no good very very bad idea, but it’s not like he’s got any other plans for this Friday night. This is a notion that Scott agrees with, because he very enthusiastically demands to tag along before Stiles even has a chance to ask him. He sees the flyer and that’s it – Stiles’ Friday night has been planned for him. 

They’ll go to the party, and they’ll probably have too much to drink, and it will all probably be just fine. Stiles curls the flyer tight in his hand as he walks down the hall with Scott chattering excitedly next to him – who’s gonna be there, how are we going to get alcohol, is your cousin still in town maybe she’ll get some for us – and it’s just happenstance that Derek is standing at his locker looking down at the same invitation. 

Derek doesn’t notice Stiles or Scott, or if he does he pretends that he doesn’t. He folds the paper up and tucks it into his back pocket. Stiles knows beyond any shadow of a doubt that Derek Hale will be in attendance, because it is no secret whatsoever that Derek likes to drink and party. There have been stories, more mythological lore it feels sometimes, of Derek Hale at parties. Like drinking an entire handle of vodka and making out with half the cheerleading squad, or falling out of a second story window and living to tell the tale thanks to a gaggle of bushes down below, or falling into the pool with all of his clothes on and nearly drowning. Stiles has seen with his own two eyes Derek at more than one of these parties. 

He gets really, really drunk. Were Stiles a true friend to him, he might have brought up that it doesn’t seem particularly healthy for an 18 year old kid to already have this much of a problem with binge drinking. But since they are friends neither true or fake, Stiles has always laughed and made tasteless jokes about how he’s already got his foot in the door of a rehabilitation center. 

Stiles never really cared beyond a few jabs about how much Derek has to drink, but this time, for whatever reason, it makes Stiles nervous. No, he’s never seen or heard about Derek having too much to drink and spilling secrets out of his mouth like vomit, but it doesn’t seem that far fetched to Stiles for it to be a possibility. Maybe he will get too drunk and go around telling everyone he saw Stiles Stilinski and Seth Turner making out in a supply closet. But maybe he’ll be so drunk he’ll lose all credibility. 

Either way, Stiles averts his eyes as soon as Derek closes his locker and turns to face them, staring down at the floor.

**

Lydia Martin’s house is mammoth in a way that has always made Stiles feel uncomfortable. Even when they were dating and he was a more than welcome guest, he felt like he was walking around in a museum rather than someone’s actual house. There are antiques from Europe and World War 2, big paintings spanning lengths of entire walls that look stolen from the Louvre, miles and miles of fine rugs and carpeting, fine leather couches, and on and on. It’s a wonder Lydia feels brave enough to host a party in this house at all.

She’s got it sectioned off so only the front porch, foyer, kitchen, and back patio area are available for partying. The rest of the house, the living room and the staircase leading to bedrooms and pool rooms and home theaters, are blocked off with baby gates and dog gates. Behind one such a gate there are in fact four little yapper dogs barking their heads off at anyone who walks past, a sea of little toys and furry things lying around their paws. 

Stiles pauses to reach in and offer a hand to pet. It nearly get bitten off by one of the Chihuahuas in the mix, so he retracts it with a quick laugh. These dogs have never ever liked him. But to be fair, they don’t seem to really like anybody, Lydia included. 

In the kitchen, there’s a lot of alcohol. It’s spread out on top of the island, littering the counter tops, spilling out of the fridge as someone opens it in search of a beer. Stiles simply drops his twenty-four pack of PBR on the island, pries it open and hands one to Scott, and then stands there drinking his own. Scott is looking around himself like a kid in a candy store, always more than ready for any kind of social outing as an extrovert. 

Stiles is more of an introvert. So he hovers and sips his beer. Finishes it in less than five minutes and goes onto his next one. 

Scott is gone before Stiles can blink, locating a gaggle of people he’s particularly interested in speaking to, and Stiles is okay with that. He nurses his third beer and meanders his way through the kitchen, taking note of all the familiar classmates he sees as he travels through. The cheerleaders are all here, sitting on the cushioned patio furniture out back and smoking cigarettes, talking amongst themselves in hushed tones about other people, Stiles is sure of it. Erica Reyes is among them, taking a long drag from her own smoke and catching his eyes as he walks past. 

She really has the biggest crush on him, and has since they were freshmen. Why she, as a popular and pretty cheerleader with her pick of the jocks, not only find Stiles attractive but also seems to be terrified to do anything about it is beyond Stiles entirely. But it’s obvious, and everyone knows it, including all her friends, so Stiles has always been very careful never to lead her on. He averts his eyes instantly and keeps walking without more than a passing glance. 

There are lots of people in the hot tub, underneath glittering string lights and some paper stars, but Stiles chooses a seat on the sidelines in one of the pool chairs. He takes a long sip of his beer and looks up at the sky – when he looks back down, there’s Derek, across the pool. 

He’s got his arm around some girl that Stiles only vaguely recognizes. She’s younger, maybe a sophomore which would explain Stiles’ inability to come up with a name for her. He seems to be in pretty good spirits, a party cup in one hand, a girl in the other, and before Stiles knows it, he’s watching them make-out. Aggressively. Like, any second they’re about to disappear into the surrounding tree line to have sex. 

Which pretty much solves that problem for Stiles. There’s not much gossiping Derek Hale can do with Stiles’ secrets if he’s too busy fucking some no-name behind a tree. Stiles drinks his beer and feels only a pinch of relief, watching the two of them tongue at each other with something twisting in his gut that feels a lot like envy. 

It’s either lucky or not that a pair of smooth pale legs in a short skirt appears in his eyeline, blocking any and all sight of Derek Hale and his new conquest. Stiles looks up and meets Lydia’s eyes. She’s got a raised brow and a party cup in her hand, her mouth twisted. She might be a little drunk. “Staring at people as they kiss isn’t weird or anything,” she opens with, and then sucks at her neon straw. 

Stiles shrugs. “I wasn’t staring.”

“You were, I’ve been watching you.”

“It was the most interesting thing happening around the pool,” he gestures at the scene – the empty pool rippling, the girls all laughing in the hot tub, the cheerleaders and their cloud of smoke, the few people milling on the grass drinking and talking. 

Lydia levels him with a steady gaze. “Not the girls taking their bikini tops off in the hot tub.” 

This takes Stiles by surprise. When he looks, sure enough, there are bare breasts to be seen over there, a half dozen of them. He stares and stares, and then shrugs. 

“Right,” she draws the word out nice and long. “Who Derek Hale does or doesn’t kiss is more interesting to you than a naked woman’s body.” 

This makes Stiles’ antenna go up. Lydia is two things – drunk, and calculating. She has an uncanny ability to stare through people’s souls to get at the very core of them, the center, where all their dirtiest, deepest secrets lie. When they were dating it’s possible she never saw clean through to Stiles’ deepest secret because she simply did not want to know. It was a type of protection for herself that kept her from ever realizing why it may have been that their relationship was never going to work. 

Now, though, she’s just drunk and spurned. Stiles isn’t quite sure how to combat it, so he just drinks more of his beer and shrugs, hoping that she’ll just lope away somewhere to torment somebody else. 

Instead, she stands there and stares at him some more. She looks over her shoulder to look at Derek Hale again, then back to him. “He’s an asshole, you know.” 

“You think I don’t know that?” Stiles is confused, furrowing his brow. “I’ve only spent the last ten years of my life fighting with him.” 

“Yeah, but, I mean, he’s an _asshole_ ,” she draws the word out nice and long, as if it takes on a different meaning depending on exactly how she says it. “No one who has ever dated or hooked up with that guy has ever had anything nice to say about him after the fact.” 

“What do I care about that?” 

She looks at him. It’s that all-knowing, all-seeing gaze, like the eye of Mordor. Stiles feels tiny under its wrath, so he looks away and stares down at his beer can, traces the design with his thumb. “I know you, Stiles Stilinski.” 

“Not really. We only dated for, like, five months.” 

With a snort, totally uncharacteristic of her and something she would never do sober, she rolls her eyes. “Gee, I wonder why.” 

“Has Derek said anything to you?” He demands, out of nowhere, because this conversation is starting to feel a lot like…well. It’s just starting to feel shitty. “Has he told you anything?” 

“I don’t talk to that _dolt_ ,” she hisses as though it’s such a ridiculous accusation. “There’s better conversation to be had with a snapping turtle. Why do you ask?” 

Stiles decides then and there that he’s had just about enough of this conversation, standing up and towering over Lydia instead of the other way around. She looks up at him and frowns, like she’s only just now getting the impression that maybe she’s upset him. She says, “look, I wasn’t trying to expose your –“

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he speaks with finality, and she snaps her jaw shut. She knows exactly what she’s talking about, and she knows that Stiles knows that – but she also knows she’s drunk and has overstepped her boundaries, so she just blinks a bit rapidly and turns to walk away. Off to the cheerleaders, who will embrace her with open arms as everyone else does for social royalty. 

As for Stiles, he’s a social nothing. People like him, yes, but there’s no one around here clamoring for his attention or his company. The girl that Derek had been kissing only moments before is now sitting alone and dejected on a pool chair, a puzzled and somewhat annoyed look on her face. Derek nowhere to be seen. Stiles decides he doesn’t care about that, waving his hand off and going back inside to get another beer.

There, he runs into Scott, who has been holding court in the kitchen for the entire time Stiles has been outside, playing cards with a small group of people. Isaac Lahey is one of them, looking placid as he examines Stiles from head to toe. Derek isn’t in here with his best friend, either. 

As he gets another beer from his pack, Scott says, “you look irritated.”

Stiles pops open the can and practically finishes the entire thing in one go. From the corner of his eye, he sees Isaac and Scott share a look with one another. Stiles rarely ever drinks this much. “Lydia Martin just decided to accost me drunkenly about the downfall of our relationship.” 

“Oh, _man_ ,” Scott puts his hands on his head like he’s getting ready for a bomb to go off. Isaac looks away, sensing maybe this isn’t any of his business, while other people around them stop what they’re doing to tune into the conversation. “She did _what_?” 

“Oh, yeah. Out of the clear blue sky.” 

“It’s ancient history!” Scott is implicitly on Stiles’ side. He has absolutely no clue what Lydia said, what the context even was, who exactly they were talking about, but it doesn’t matter. Stiles is upset, and so now Scott is upset on his behalf. “She invited you here just to harass you about that?” 

“She’s drunk,” Stiles says this dismissively, while people murmur quietly to themselves about it. What they must think, Stiles can only imagine. That maybe Stiles and Lydia are unfinished business, that maybe they’ll get back together, that they were born to be the it couple of Beacon High, king and queen of the prom, whatever. 

The truth, Stiles thinks, is so much worse than that. 

“Do you want to leave?” Scott asks, already setting down his own pile of cards. He’d be ready to go at a moment’s notice, out the door, never to return, if Stiles were to say so. 

“No,” he decides, tossing his empty can into the recycling among many others just like it. “I just ah – I want to get some air.” 

Scott doesn’t look convinced. He furrows his brow and scratches at his head. “Are you sure?” 

Stiles nods his head and shrugs. “She was just drunk, man.” 

Slowly, Scott sits back down in his stool next to Isaac and picks his cards back up. “Just let me know.” 

Out the door Stiles goes again, and there are the cheerleaders still. Sitting in their circle, eyeballing him as he walks past. Lydia is there, as well, looking somewhat somber, and Erica stares at him some more, and Stiles just…doesn’t have the mental energy for any of them right now. He keeps walking and then stops right at the edge of the pool. He drinks his beer and has this insane thought, like maybe he’ll jump in fully clothed, sink down to the bottom like a rock, stay down there for a while where all the noises of the party are muffled, where no one will be able to see him clearly. 

Instead, he walks away and heads toward the edge of the property. The end of the house, right up against the cover of the trees, where the only light filters out from the windows in small squares on the grass. As he walks past the window to the kitchen, he hears raucous cheering like someone has just won the game, silhouettes moving quick and fast in excitement, but he pays it no mind. 

Around the corner, he expects to be alone, but there’s someone there. A huge figure leaning up against the house next to the AC unit, drinking right out of a bottle of Maker’s Mark. Stiles knows it instantly to be Derek Hale, just from the shape and size of the shadow alone. As such, he freezes as soon as he sees it, skidding to a stop and wondering if maybe he should turn around and go back to find somewhere else to mope on his own. 

Derek turns to him, still far enough away to be just a shadow in the dark with no discernible features. “Is that Stilinski?” 

He has this hilarious thought of saying _no_ and turning and making a run for it. He doesn’t know what it is that propels him to actually take another step forward and nod his head. “It sure is.” 

“What’s the matter?” He says in somewhat of a taunting tone, taking a huge sip from his bottle and then running his hand across his mouth. “Not having much fun?” 

Stiles stops five feet away, maybe, just close enough that he can make out the dark holes where Derek’s eyes should be. “I’m not a big party person.” 

“Too busy wasting your life studying.” 

“It’s better than wasting my life drinking myself to death, I’d reckon.” 

“You don’t know me,” Derek corrects lighting quick. It’s amazing he can be so defensive of this particular subject, standing here drunker than hell in the dark, sipping out of a handle of whisky.

“Then what’s the matter with you? It looked like you were ten seconds away from hooking up with a sophomore.” 

Derek laughs, but not in a ha-ha, funny way. It’s a low, dark, mean sounding laugh, that comes from the throat more than the chest. He shakes his head and stares off into the tree line. “Well, I’m an asshole.” 

It’s an echo of what Lydia had said, of what every single person alive has said about Derek. “Sure.” 

“I’m a fuck up, I don’t know.” 

Stiles feels weird standing here, now. Like he’s interrupted some deeply personal sad sack session and he should probably turn right around and high tail it for the hills before this gets any weirder. Of course, he doesn’t, and so of course, it does.

Derek pushes himself away from the house and turns directly towards Stiles. Takes a couple steps in his direction, so the distance between them closes to only a few steps’ worth. “Did you come back here to hit me?” 

“I’m not going to fight you, you asshole, just relax.” 

“You always want to hit me, so do it,” he throws the bottle off to the side with a clink and a smattering of liquid spreading all across the glass, and Stiles takes one step back on instinct. “Fucking hit me.” 

“You’re drunk,” Stiles hisses at him, putting his hands up in the air to surrender. “I’m not going to hit you, man, fuck off.”

“Oh, yeah?” Derek is very abruptly there, in Stiles’ personal space, the way he’s been hundreds of thousands of times before. This time, it feels different. Stiles gets this thrill of adrenaline up his spine, just like in a fight, just like before he gets hit in the face, just like when Derek has always been this close, in the past. 

But Stiles doesn’t think Derek is about to hit him. Something in his eyes, now that he can see Derek’s face lit up just enough from what’s spilling out of the living room windows, isn’t the same as it used to be. There’s no anger there. There’s no fight. 

Derek grabs Stiles by his shoulders, big bear paws gripping him tight, and kisses him. It’s long. Their lips stay locked together for what feels like an eternity, Stiles’ eyes big in his head and wide open, Derek’s shut and his lashes brushing up against Stiles’ cheeks. Stiles can’t move. His brain isn’t working. He’s had too much to drink to react quickly enough. 

He’s too slow to do anything about it when Derek pulls away, uses his hands to push Stiles up against the side of the house. He doesn’t move when Derek buries his nose into Stiles’ neck, inhaling deeply like he’s thought about doing it for a long time – Stiles’ deodorant, Stiles’ cologne, Stiles’ innate scent – and when he presses his lips to Stiles’ skin, licking a stripe up towards his ear, Stiles’ only reaction is to drop his beer can so the liquid spills out and fizzles around their feet. 

There is no move Stiles can think to make. It feels good, like sinfully good, like come in his pants good, like he’s going to go straight to hell for feeling like this good. He stays planted still as Derek sucks a hickey into his neck, as Derek paws at his chest, hand trailing to go lower, even lower, lower still…

…and then Derek pulls away. Looks Stiles right in his face, and Stiles can only imagine what his face looks like right now. There’s silence between them for an extended second, Stiles licking his lips and his hands shaking, either with fear or from holding back reaching out to touch him, and then Derek says, “oh, man.” 

Without another word, he turns away. He staggers a bit towards the trees, and then makes a break for it. Just starts fucking sprinting into the woods, top speed, zig zagging a bit from the drunkenness. Stiles watches, stuck still and silent.

Derek abruptly stops at one point, putting his hand on a tree for balance as he leans over and pukes into a pile of a leaves. Stiles gapes at this, putting his hands up on his face. It feels hot, flushed. 

And then Derek is off again, disappearing into the darkness where Stiles can no longer see him anymore.


	2. The Trifecta

Stiles idles outside of Scott’s house on the following Monday morning, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles. He watches as Scott comes hurtling out of his front door with a goodbye to his mother and a pop tart hanging out of his mouth as he pulls his backpack on mid-step, and then quickly turns away, gritting his teeth as though he hopes to create a prison out of them for the words that are so desperately trying to force their way out of his mouth. 

Scott opens the passenger door with a creak, hops in, and says, “that was quite the party this weekend, huh?”

For no reason, Stiles searches Scott’s face for any indication that he found what had happened at Lydia Martin’s house odd. There is a good reason to look on someone else’s face, yes - but not Scott McCall. Scott doesn’t usually suspect people of hiding some big fat secret. 

After what had happened with Derek, Stiles had stood there for a long time. Long enough that Scott had come looking for him, asking everyone outside and inside if they had seen Stiles and how long ago. Stiles heard him around the corner asking a couple members of the football team this exact question almost like he was hearing it from underwater, still staring out at the tree line where Derek had ultimately disappeared. 

The kid could’ve been out there getting eaten by wolves for all Stiles knew - shit, he had ran for his fucking life, faster than Stiles has ever seen a drunk person go. Maybe he was trying to run from what he had just done. Stiles was sure of it. There was no other explanation.

When Scott had finally come around the corner and seen Stiles standing there - beer can at his feet, empty bottle of Maker’s Mark (Derek’s weapon of choice) cast off the side, Stiles’ shocky and pale facial expression - he immediately drew the only logical conclusion that there was to be drawn. “Did you and Derek have another fight?”

The truth seemed impossible to be spoken out loud. What the ever living fuck was Stiles supposed to say? What could he say? Instead, he had confessed to the imaginary fight, said that he’d had too much to drink, and that he’d like to go home. 

Scott called an Uber and stood out front of Lydia’s ridiculous mansion with Stiles. When Stiles said nothing, not a word, Scott didn’t ask any questions. He must have assumed that Stiles was upset about Lydia and the subsequent fight with Derek - he never in a million trillion years could have imagined the reality of what was plaguing Stiles. On the ride home, Stiles remained silent, and Scott chattered about people he had spoken to at the party and this that and the other thing - honestly, Stiles wasn’t even half listening. He spent the car ride staring out the window, wondering if they were going to see Derek drunkenly sprinting down the sidewalk, desperately trying to outrun what he had just done. 

When they drove past Derek’s own ridiculous mansion on the way to Stiles’ humble abode, all the lights in the house were off. No sign of Derek passed out in the yard or on the porch. 

The point being, Stiles had acted bizarrely that night with little to no explanation. He had expected a little bit of a grilling process from Scott. Stiles lets the ‘some party’ comment go over his head without comment, and starts driving. He can feel Scott side eyeing him as he heads to the stop sign, looks both ways, and then starts driving. 

With a deep sigh, Scott starts what Stiles had expected all along. “You’re clearly upset about Lydia.”

Stiles could laugh out loud, because holy shit, Lydia? He had nearly forgotten that had even happened, it’s so fucking far away in his rear view mirror in comparison with everything else. 

“I mean, I always thought you guys had left it with a bit of an open ending, ya know? Like, I always thought one day you could talk it out and then wind up together. Because you guys so obviously work well together, and maybe her drunkenly confronting you like that is the best way she can -“

“Scott,” Stiles interrupts as he pulls into the school parking lot, slowing to a crawl to navigate through the sea of other kids and cars, “Lydia and I are never, ever, ever, going to get back together.”

This seems to disappoint Scott. He deflates, leaning back in his seat. “Oh.” There’s a brief silence as Stiles stops to allow the crosswalk in front of them to empty. “So then what are you so sad about?”

Sad. Out of all the adjectives Stiles has used to describe himself in these past couple of days - confused, bamboozled, shook, angry - sad is one that has never come up. Scott reads that loud and clear in the way that Stiles has been acting, sees it written all over his face. 

Maybe it’s because someone had kissed him and then ran for their fucking lives like they’d never been more ashamed of something before. Stiles doesn’t want to go down that road, and he can’t tell Scott the truth, so he has to come up with something. Anything. He says, “I guess I’m just sad it’s really over.” 

Scott buys this hook line and sinker, reaching out to give Stiles a little pat pat on his shoulder. “Aw, buddy.”

He feels lower than he ever has in his life, slowly pulling into his parking spot right beside where Derek’s is already parked. For one blessed moment, Stiles thinks that Derek is already long gone, in the school somewhere, and that Stiles has avoided him altogether this morning.

Then, right as Stiles’ brakes squeak to a stop and he kills the engine, Derek’s driver’s side door pops open. Out he comes, his hair glistening with gel in the early morning sunshine. They meet eyes over the hood of Derek’s car, and Derek has got almost no expression on his face. No anger, no shock, no nothing. Meanwhile, Stiles freezes and feels like he might start screaming, or crying, or punching his steering wheel. 

How can Derek look at him like that? Like nothing even happened? Does he not remember? 

Scott notices this and says, “what the hell did you two even fight about that night?”

A lie is being formulated behind Stiles’ pursed lips, some bullshit about fighting words, but he gets cut short because Derek’s passenger door pops open, surprising both of them. 

There’s a pair of long legs, a short skirt, a book bag, and then out steps of all possible fucking people on planet earth, Erica Reyes. As she gets out, she gives Stiles this smirk that says _too bad_ , and Stiles’ jaw drops. You don’t show up on Monday morning after a party in Derek Hale’s car because you’ve suddenly decided to start carpooling. Oh, no.

They fucked. They are fucking, currently, if the look on Erica’s face is anything to go by. And worst of all, Derek looks right at Stiles just like he used to. Not the way he had looked at Stiles in the dark at the party, not the way he had looked at Stiles before kissing him - but the way he used to look at Stiles when they were kids. Fighting. Like Derek would give anything for Stiles to just...disappear. 

It’s like a slap in the face. Or a punch to the gut, worse than anything physical Derek could possibly deliver. They had kissed. Stiles still has a fading bruise on his neck from Derek’s mouth. And he’s going to act like it hadn’t happened. 

“Oh, dude. That’s rough.” Scott is doing the pat pat thing again, as Erica and Derek round the car, meet at the back of it. Derek puts his arm around her and Stiles scoffs. “I told you to make a move on that girl and you wouldn’t do it. Now she’s with Hale.” Scott cranes his neck to watch them as they walk towards the school, pressed against each other. “Yikes.”

Yikes. That doesn’t even begin to cover it. 

The worst part of it all is that Stiles isn’t even allowed the time and space to process this blow on his own, in private - it’s all he fucking hears about all day long. In home room, the word had already spread, like wildfire. Whispers, whispers, while Scott sat and felt sorry for Stiles for the wrong reasons. In third period, he and Erica’s shared class, Erica fielded questions about it like the queen at a press conference, fluffing her hair and applying lip gloss and saying, “we just hooked up, this weekend. I guess he’s liked me for a long time.”

Stiles gripped his pencil and tried to focus on French, tried to forget about the way Derek’s lips felt against his. 

At his locker, the girls on either side of him started chittering about it over his head as he pulled books out for stats class. How unbelievable it was, and wow can you believe it, who would’ve thought, I wonder how it happened -

Stiles slammed his locker shut hard enough to make the girls jump, throwing his hands out in the air. “It’s the quarterback and a fucking cheerleader, ladies, it’s just not that fucking interesting.”

They had stared at him wide-eyed, and other people around him had heard. Lydia was doing that eye of Mordor thing again from down the hall, shaking her head and clucking her tongue at him. 

It was a nightmare. And of course Derek had to do this to him - it wasn’t enough to mess with the closeted gay kid at a party by kissing him and then puking in the bushes about it. He had to go and do this to him, too. It’s humiliating and it makes Stiles feel...ugly. Dirty, somehow. Stiles doesn’t know if it was Derek’s goal to hurt Stiles by parading himself and Erica around or if he just wanted to hide, like Stiles.

Either way, it doesn’t matter. Stiles is hurt, and he doesn’t even get to say that.

**

“That is really rough,” Allison slowly unpeels her clementine with a frown on her face, turning side long to gaze at where the cheerleaders and football players typically congregate during lunch hour. Of course Erica and Derek share a lunch hour with Stiles, which is not something that Stiles had ever noticed or cared about before. “And completely out of the clear blue sky.”

There they are, seated right next to one another, practically in the same chair for how close they are, being disgusting. They may as well be feeding each other bon bons and rubbing their noses together while giggling. It’s sick beyond. Stiles squishes parts of his PB&J between his fingers just to feel it get obliterated. 

“Dude. I was talking to Isaac about it in gym class. He says he has no idea where it even came from,” Scott shakes his head like he still can’t quite believe it’s happening. Like if he shakes his head hard enough he’ll shake them all out of this alternative hell universe they’re in now and back into the real world. “Like, Derek has never once mentioned being interested in her before and then suddenly - bang. There they are. It doesn’t make any -“

“Oh, it makes sense,” Stiles cuts him off, shoving his food away from him. “He’s just doing this to get to me somehow.”

Scott makes a baffled sort of sound from the back of his throat - a sort of “that’s an insane thing to say, but you might be right” sound. 

“He can’t punch me anymore so he’s turned to psychological warfare. It’s so fucking obvious.” Across the room, Erica and Derek kiss much to their table’s delight and Stiles’ utter disgust. He thinks about how he knows firsthand what Derek’s lips feel like and how fucked it is that he knows that, that he should’ve pushed Derek off of him the second he tried to lock their lips together, punched him, told him he was sick and fucked and he shouldn’t do that to people. To other boys, least of all. 

“I mean…” Scott shrugs nervously, like he knows it’s nuts and too cruel for even Derek, but if only he knew the entire truth of it.

“Come on,” Allison seems likewise unconvinced. “He’d have an entire fake relationship just because of you? No.” 

If only anybody knew what had really happened. Stiles knows beyond any shadow of a doubt that this parade, this fucking circus of Derek and Erica, is all just because of him. It might not be just another tactical move in Stiles and Derek’s endless crusade to one-up each other, but it’s certainly about Stiles. 

Derek had kissed Stiles. Derek had pushed him up against the house and inhaled him like he had wanted to do it for a long time. Derek had gone farther than just a drunk person acting on impulse would have. And this, here, this display of heteronormativity, the cheerleader and the quarterback - this is the cover up. 

Stiles isn’t hungry. He balls his uneaten food up and stands from the table, citing something about not feeling well to his friends, and tosses the ball into the nearest trash as he makes his way out of the cafeteria. 

At the end of the day, when Stiles and Scott make their way to Stiles’ Jeep towards the edge of the parking lot, Derek is there. He’s leaning up against the back of his car and Erica is nowhere in sight - just him, arms crossed, frowning. 

When he sees that Scott is there with Stiles he seems confused for a moment. He had likely been expecting to get Stiles alone for whatever reason. Either to torment him or do something far worse, it doesn’t really matter. Scott is here, so whatever he had been planning to say cannot be said. 

As Stiles gets closer, Derek stands up straight and clears his throat, averting his eyes towards the tree line. He does not look like a person who’s doing things to hurt someone else, on purpose, or like he’s getting any enjoyment out of it. He looks sheepish and embarrassed, almost. It doesn’t matter. 

“I was hoping to talk to you,” he starts with, at the exact same time that Stiles says, “fuck off.” 

There’s a beat of silence, Derek’s surprised blink, Scott’s hurried steps getting faster like if he gets into the car quick enough this will all be over. Derek tries again, side stepping until he’s blocking the path Stiles would have to take to get to his driver’s side door. “I just wanted to say…” Scott is ducked into the Jeep, slamming the door behind him. “...I was really drunk at that party.” 

So he does remember. He wasn’t too drunk to have blacked it all out, unlucky for him. He’s got this look in his eyes, like he needs Stiles to believe it was just the liquor, that he would never do something like that sober, never ever in his life. That the memory is one he wishes he could scrub from his mind, forget forever. 

“Oh, were you?” Stiles’ voice cracks, and it’s just another humiliation to add to the pile because Derek hears it and looks surprised. All of the fights they’ve ever been in, all the things they’ve ever said to one another, and Stiles has never cried. Not once. He’s about to cry now, right in front of this person who he’s hated so much, and Derek knows. “Big surprise.” 

Stiles wants to say that it is cruel of him to do what he’s done. That Stiles’ biggest, deepest, secret is not a weapon for Derek to use against him like this, that he’s humiliated, that he’s hurt and he has no way to retaliate. This isn’t a fight. It’s an attack against someone who has their hands tied behind their back. It’s vicious. 

But all that would be in Scott’s earshot. Even this, Stiles isn’t allowed to say. That’s the worst thing of all. 

“When’s the last time you weren’t?” Stiles pushes past Derek with his eyes down, and Derek doesn’t say anything else. Just watches him go in silence, as Stiles pulls his door open and climbs inside. 

He starts the engine and sniffles, seeing in his rear view mirror that Derek is still just standing there looking stupefied, and revs the engine to let him know he will back up anyway and run the fucker over. 

Out of the way Derek gets, and Stiles backs out of his space and starts being thankful for all of the distance he’s about to put between himself and that person. Derek will only be a handful of blocks away when Stiles turns in to sleep tonight, but he’ll pretend it’s another town. County lines over. Another state.

As he starts cutting his wheel to turn out of the parking lot, Scott says, “are you okay?”

Stiles swipes at a traitor tear on his cheek and says the only thing he can think to say that wouldn’t be a lie, but wouldn’t give too much of the truth away. “I just fucking hate that guy.”

**

One of the many rites of passage that a high schooler must be put through is the annual Homecoming trifecta. There’s phase one, the pep rally, and then phase two, which is the game itself, and then phase three. The dance. Stiles has been through it twice already, and honestly, he’s never had a strong opinion on it either way. It could be fun or it could be just okay - true, it was pretty Derek-focused last year when he made quarterback, but back then Stiles just rolled his eyes and ignored it, for the most part.

This year, he figures it’ll be much harder to ignore. All the same, he had made plans long before any of this nonsense happened to go with Allison and Scott, and it would be suspicious and odd of him to back out now. So, even though they pat him on the back and say it would be okay if he wasn’t feeling up to it, he knows that he has to go. The last thing he wants is to be some wounded puppy at the hands of Derek fucking Hale, and to have his friends know that, so he fucking has to go. 

In the parking lot after getting out, he pulls the flask he had hidden in his back pocket out and takes one long gulp, leaning against his Jeep and grimacing at the burn.

“Hey, whoa,” Scott laughs and reaches for it, “you’re sharing, aren’t you?”

“Oh, sure,” he lets Scott take it out of his hand as he watches girls dressed in school colors stream past them towards the field, big foam fingers and pom poms and silly string and laughter. He’s got on the only school-centric thing he owns, a Beacon Hills debate team sweatshirt, and he feels really ridiculous here. Like he doesn’t belong. 

He hasn’t seen Derek, or at least not much of him, since that confrontation out by their cars. They sometimes make eye contact in the cafeteria, or bump into each other in the halls, but for the most part they just keep their distance. Apparently, Derek doesn’t have anything more to say to Stiles anymore, and Stiles is more than fine with that. It’s better to just not speak at all. This will be the first time he’ll be within fifty feet of him since then. He tries not to be nervous about that. 

What’s there to be nervous of, anyway? They treat each other like ghosts. 

They go and find a spot up in the bleachers, and as soon as he sits he can’t help his eyes from wandering. He sees Erica almost immediately, hovering around with the other cheerleaders in her uniform and looking pretty and almost untouchable in that high school royalty way. Like she’s fresh out of a TV show, hair and makeup done for her, smile impeccable. Stiles doesn’t know why this matters to him, all of the sudden. Who cares if she’s absurdly pretty? Who cares if she’s at the top of the food chain? He never cared about it before, but here, now, underneath the glare of the lights, it seems impossible to ignore. 

It only gets worse when the lights get brighter and the band starts up, drums loud and banging, the tubas blowing at full fucking volume. Stiles drinks more from his flask and frowns at the display, frowns even more deeply as the football team starts descending from the bowels of the darkness. The mascot is bounding around doing over dramatic arm movements, a sentient cyclone with eyeballs that dances and doesn’t do much else, while names of the team are read aloud by the student body president into a microphone. 

There’s cheering after each name is read, some more than others - but when Derek’s name is called and he comes running out, there’s a frenzy. He’s the best player they’ve ever had, so the coach says. He’s the crux of the team. So even though on any other day, most of these people fucking hate him and would give anything to see him fail, they cheer for him. It’s the curse of high school greatness, to be loved and hated in equal amounts, Stiles guesses. The roar is deafening, and at the sight of him under all those lights, smiling in his uniform like he just won the lottery, Stiles’ stomach tightens. 

He thinks of a square of light on the grass outside of Lydia Martin’s house. The smell of whisky. The sound of their feet moving in the grass in the silence. 

Stiles watches from the stands as Derek goes right to where Erica is, waving her pom poms and grinning, and kisses her. In front of everyone, not in the dark somewhere. Just right there. And everyone cheers and wishes that were them out there, and Stiles guesses he understands that feeling. 

“I’ve gotta go to the bathroom,” Stiles says into Scott’s ear, handing him the flask because he’s not in the mood for merriment anymore. Scott says okay and Allison pats him on the back as he passes her to get to the stairs in the middle. Down he goes, and as he walks, he catches Derek’s eyes. For just a moment, until Stiles looks away, turns his head and goes down the rows until he’s on the grass, and then the gravel, and then the cement of the sidewalk. 

He goes past the bathrooms and heads off toward the main building, where no one will be, and where he knows he will be alone. For just a minute, all he wants is to get out of the lights and the sea of undying love for a person who has done nothing his whole life but hurt Stiles. 

It’s dark here, only the lights from the field filtering through the bleachers touching his skin as he goes, and it’s cold. His breath goes to fog where he leans his forehead against the brick of the building and covers his eyes with a hand. The sound of the band isn’t nearly as loud over here so he can think, while people bang their feet on the metal bleachers and the sound echoes and carries. 

There are footsteps coming his way, and for a second Stiles just ignores them because he figures it to either be Scott checking on him, or some stranger simply passing through without paying him a second glance. They get closer and closer to where he is, and Stiles sighs and looks up, met with a sight he hadn’t expected. 

It’s a silhouette, a football player, full uniform, helmet on, but Stiles instantly knows it to be Derek Hale. He just knows it’s him. He steps closer and pulls his helmet off of his head and his hair is mussed, his cheeks are ruddy, and he looks so serious. Stiles half expects him to walk right up and punch him in the face, but he doesn’t. He gets closer and he holds his helmet in one finger, dangling by his side. 

“Obviously, I want to be alone,” Stiles says to him, turning back to face the bricks. “And obviously, you are the last person I’d want to see.”

Derek grips his helmet a bit tighter, like he’s angry. “You won’t barely look at me, you won’t talk to me -“

“Is this surprising?”

“I haven’t been able to get you alone.” 

Stiles laughs, low and bitter, finally turning away from the brick wall to face him head on. “What would you possibly want to get me alone for? Don’t you have a crowd of adoring fans to entertain?” He gestures to the bleachers, the lights, the music. Derek doesn’t even glance their way. “A girlfriend?” 

With a deep inhale, Derek shakes his head. “I just wanted to -“

This is the first time Stiles has had an opportunity to say much of anything to Derek since everything happened, and boy has he ever let his mind wander with the fantasies of what he would say if ever given half the chance, so he does. Say it, that is. “You did something shitty,” Stiles says, stepping closer to point a finger in his face, “you found something out about me and you weaponized that information.” 

“That’s not what I -“

“You humiliated me. You thought since you can’t hurt me physically anymore you’d go for the next best thing, and you messed with my head, and then you showed up with her, and it made me feel like shit.” He sucks in a deep breath, wills himself not to cry. “It was too low, even for you. You just wanted to get back at me, to get the last fucking word.” 

“That is not what this is about,” he corrects hotly, waving his free hand as though to swipe away everything Stiles had just said to him. “That is not what I ever thought. I never used you being gay against you, I just -“

“I don’t know if I’m gay,” he snaps quickly, crossing his arms over his chest like he could protect himself from the word. 

“Okay,” Derek agrees, “well, whatever word. That’s not the point. I was just…” he trails off, like he can’t find the words, like he hasn’t had all the time in the world to sit and think about what he would say when the time finally came.

“You were just drunk, and you were just fucking with me, I know!” 

Derek looks angry, again. He throws his helmet on the ground and it clatters against the concrete, and then he’s advancing on Stiles. Stiles expects a punch or a shove or - anything. Anything else. 

Instead, he takes Stiles by the shoulders just like he had done that night. It’s dark again, and Derek kisses him again. He is not drunk this time, so he doesn’t taste like liquor. He tastes like toothpaste, mouth wash, green grass, and something else that’s just … him. Stiles is stupefied just like he was the last time, while Derek moves like he’s going to push Stiles against the wall, just like the last time too. 

But Stiles pushes him away, shoving hard, angry, so fucking angry, and he says, “get off of me,” in a growl, while Derek staggers back and huffs out a heavy breath as though he cannot believe he just did that again. “What is wrong with you?”

“I don’t know,” Derek says, and Stiles knows he’s being honest. Derek crouches down and holds his head in his hands, 

“A month ago you tried to put my head through the lockers, remember that?” Stiles is shouting - he feels shocky like he just fell down the stairs, and his hands are shaking. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” Derek repeats much more forcefully this time, into his hands, while behind him people must be starting to wonder where he is. Most notably, his girlfriend. “I saw you kissing him and I - I don’t know, I can’t explain it, what do you want me to say?” 

Abruptly Stiles inhales a sharp breath, hops on one foot and points his finger with accusation in Derek’s direction. “You are _bearding_ Erica Reyes!” This is met with stone cold silence. No denial. “Oh, my God, I knew it! Are you insane? That is so fucked, Derek, that’s -“

“What the hell else am I supposed to do?”

“Not that!” Stiles runs his finger over his lips, shakes his head. “It’s insane!”

Derek straightens back up to his full height and says, without hesitation, “lately, I can’t decide if I want to punch your brains out or fuck them,” Stiles flinches back at the word itself, shocked, “that’s enough to make a guy pretty fucking insane.” 

Stiles looks around himself, as if searching for the words to say somewhere in the air, because he sure as shit can’t think of any himself. This is not happening to him - this is a dream, a nightmare, some weird fever episode. A stomach bug making him see things. But no matter how much he tries to shake himself awake, Derek is still standing there, and he certainly just said that, and everything before it, and they certainly just kissed again. 

He makes a decision then and there, quick, because he knows it’s the one that any sane person would make. He puts his hands in the air and says, emphatically, “I want nothing to fucking do with this.” 

“Stiles,” Derek moves closer, as though to put his hands on Stiles’ body again, and Stiles moves away. 

“No, no way. I will not fucking - I don’t even know who I am yet, what’s going on, and you’re fucking with me!”

“I’m not doing it on purpose!” 

And that could be true. Maybe, just maybe, that day in the supply closet Derek saw Stiles kissing Seth and he realized something about himself. That he didn’t hate what he saw, the idea of it, and that was weird for him just like it was weird for Stiles when he first started thinking of it. It could be true. 

But this is the guy who has punched Stiles so hard he’s blacked out. This is the guy who has held Stiles in a chokehold, pushed him into cars, that Stiles has done similar things to. It cannot possibly be that...it just cannot be. 

“Leave me alone, stop fucking around behind your girlfriend’s back,” Stiles shakes his head. “You are fucking nuts.” 

Derek bends down, picks his helmet up. “I can’t help myself,” he spits in Stiles’ direction, and then away he goes. Helmet back on, so he could be any one of them, back into the lights and the noise and everything else. Stiles watches him go and feels hollowed out, like he just put everything he’s been carrying around with him in silence for the past few weeks out into the open, and now he’s not sure what to fill that space with.

He wonders what Derek had meant, when he said he couldn’t help himself. 

He walks back toward the bleachers and people are already streaming back to their cars in the parking lot, voices loud and echoing against the walls of the school. Scott finds him somewhere in the crowd and puts his arm around his friend’s shoulders, shouting, “where were you, man?” 

“I just needed to get some air,” Stiles says, and then they have to stop in their tracks because the procession of football players heading back to the locker room to change out of their clown suits blocks their path. There goes Jackson Whittemore and Theo Raeken and Isaac Lahey, and then, towards the end, Derek Hale. He walks right past Scott and Stiles with a glance at Stiles, heated, tension, like his eyes could touch him somehow, and Stiles swallows. Scott notices nothing. 

Allison says it was fun and is anyone hungry, and Scott wants pizza and they all agree to go, and Stiles wonders what Derek had meant. 

It’s not possible that Derek could want him that way, it’s an insane thought. They hate each other, they always have, fucking always, since they were kids. It’s an ancient rivalry, they can’t go from that to...whatever it is. 

The truth is Stiles can’t say with any certainty that he doesn’t want Derek. That thought scares him more than any he’s had since he started trying to figure out who he is.

**

Stiles stands underneath a huge banner in the school hall, announcing in all its glittery glory that the Homecoming dance is coming up, in a week’s time. He fishes around in his locker for his English notebook, frowning and huffing as Scott chatters beside him about the dance itself. That they should all carpool, should of course pre-game, should go out for pizza afterwards.

Stiles hasn’t had a whole lot of time to really think about this whole Homecoming dance shit - he’s had much more pressing matters to consider in recent days. So when Scott asks him, “who are you going to ask?”, it actually gives Stiles some pause. 

“Uh,” he says, fumbling for a response before deciding the truth is the best way to go. “I hadn’t thought about it.”

Scott gives him a look. “Are you still moping about Derek and Erica?” 

If only Scott fucking knew. Derek and Erica, in spite of Derek kissing Stiles twice, in spite of everything that Derek admitted to him in the dark outside of the pep rally, are going as strong as ever. It’s half of what anyone talks about at school anymore. They’re the “it” couple, high school royalty, and to make matters even fucking worse they got nominated for king and queen at this god forsaken dance. 

“You were never going to ask that girl to the dance,” true, “because you didn’t have the stones to do it,” not true, “so now you have to pick someone else. Maybe Lydia?”

Stiles slams his locker closed and adjusts his backpack on his shoulder. “She is going with Jackson Whittemore.” 

“Oh, yikes,” Scott says, and then at Stiles’ firm look changes trajectories. “I mean, whatever. We’re over it.” Stiles really, truly, entirely, and completely is. But letting Scott think he’s all torn up over it can only help his case at this point. “Um, okay. What about Jasmine? From History class.”

Stiles has to resist saying, _who_? 

“She’s pretty,” Scott checks this off on a finger, “she’s funny,” another finger, “she’s not dating anyone.”

“I’m really okay just going with you and Allison.” Frankly if he had his way he wouldn’t be going at fucking all - he’d be wallowing at home in bed eating ice cream and wondering if anyone was ever going to like him or if high school was ever going to fucking end. But that, again, just isn’t an option. “I don’t mind not having a date.”

Scott looks like he’s about to argue this, so Stiles cuts him off before he gets started. 

“I just want some time to be on my own. You know,” he sees Derek lazing his way down the hall toward their shared English class, books in hand, sunglasses on inside, and he frowns. “Figure myself out.” 

This, Scott can’t really argue, so he lets the subject drop and bids Stiles goodbye to go to his own class down the opposite end of the hall. Derek goes inside the classroom and Stiles sucks in a deep breath and thinks about not going. But he’s never once skipped a class in his life, and he won’t let Derek of all people be the reason his perfect attendance record is shattered. 

So, in he goes, clutching his notebook tight to his chest. His assigned seat is two rows away from Derek, so it’s easy to ignore him the way he’s been doing for weeks now. He just keeps his eyes dead ahead as he moves to his seat, puts his bag down, and sits without a glance in his direction. All the same, he feels Derek’s eyes boring into the side of his face, so bad that he doesn’t have any choice but to turn just enough to catch the stare. 

Derek is sitting there, sunglasses pushed up on top of his head, looking at Stiles. Stiles meets his eyes and makes a face, scrunching his nose up. For some reason, this makes Derek smile. Likely, because it’s the only crumb of attention Stiles has given him in days. 

Stiles turns back around and pretends that smile, all teeth and dimples and that casual as all fuck brand of attractiveness Derek has always had doesn’t get to Stiles at all. 

Class starts, and Ms Kirby takes to the front of the room to announce that they’ll be working in pairs today for an in class assignment. Stiles perks up, because he usually gets paired with the person directly next to him - who, in this class happens to be Brian Grant. He’s a pretty nice guy who, although on the football team with Derek, is actually half decent and does his share of the work. 

“I’ve already chosen the pairs,” she says, because she always does in order to avoid both the chaos of people leaping across the room to get to their friends and people not getting picked, and starts rattling off names. She goes through the list and Stiles waits until his name is called, tapping his pen on his notebook. He doesn’t pay much attention to other people’s pairings, until… “Stiles and Derek -“

Stiles sits up and coughs, turning his head and cupping his hand around his ear. “Uh, what? Whom and _whom_?”

Ms. Kirby gives him a look that says he’s being ridiculous - he’s familiar with it. “Mr. Keenan thought it would be a good idea if you two -“

“Nope,” Stiles shakes his head, “no way.” 

“...ignoring each other’s existence is one thing. You need to learn to work with people you don’t like.”

“No way.”

“It’s a life skill.” 

“But…” Stiles chances a glance at Derek to find him sitting there, placid, like none of this is news to him or like it doesn’t bother him at all. It only serves to infuriate him more. Stiles wants to shout that they can’t work together, not at all, and not because they hate each other anymore, but because they...can’t. Stiles can’t deal with him. 

Ms. Kirby ignores him and assigns the rest of the pairs, while the class giggles and titters because they think they’re going to get to see one of Derek and Stiles’ fabled fights or bickering matches. Stiles sits and thinks about making a run for it, Derek’s eyes on the back of his neck the whole time. 

The list is done, and everyone gets up and moves to meet up with their partner as the assignment is passed around, but Stiles just sits there and wants to melt. Drip all over the floor until he gets mopped up by the janitor at the end of the day. Derek picks the desk in front of Stiles and turns it around with a grating sound on the tiled floor underfoot, before sitting down and facing him directly. He has the assignment in his hand, and he clicks his pen. 

“This is a fucking joke,” Stiles says, clicking his own pen and turning to a fresh sheet in his notebook, “but all of high school is, so whatever. Let’s just answer the questions and -“ 

“You think high school is a joke?” Derek lifts his eyebrows, looking like he’s genuinely interested to hear the answer. “Here I thought you took it seriously.” 

Stiles glowers. “I take my class work seriously. As for the politics and the pomp of it all, that’s a joke.”

“The politics and the pomp of it all?” 

“Well, Christ. Not everyone is the god of the school with eight thousand friends and the pick of the litter, fucking eight out of ten of the cheerleaders every season -“ Ms. Kirby comes closer, skirting past their desks, and Stiles clears his throat. “...obviously the Great Gatsby is a story about the - the - death of the American dream and…” she goes, heading around the room once more, and Derek looks bemused. “My point is, it’s not fun for everyone.” 

Derek smiles at him, slow. “Who says I’m having fun?” 

“Spare me the poor little rich boy routine. All you do is have fun - can we just do the work?”

Derek shrugs and sits up, clicking his pen again. “Do you think that Nick is a reliable storyteller?” 

It isn’t like they can sit here and rehash everything they’ve been through these past couple of weeks, not here in front of everyone, but Stiles is irritated with him and he feels pent up and he just...he either hates Derek, fucking despises him, or feels something else very strongly that Stiles can’t quite find the words for. “I assume you and Erica are going to Homecoming together.”

“Don’t be shitty,” Derek warns, writing the number one on his sheet and shaking his head. 

Stiles curls his fingers together and thinks that he’s not the shitty one. “So, then, you don’t mean everything you say.”

“I do,” he corrects, looking up to meet Stiles’ eyes. “You just won’t talk to me.” 

“Got nothing to say,” he shrugs, even though that’s not true. Not true at all. “And yes, I do think so.”

Derek looks pensive, like he has more to say, but he knows he can’t say it here, so he won’t say it at all. He just sighs and starts writing, while Stiles watches his hand move across the page.

**

Stiles pushes his hair back in the mirror, trying to decide if he’ll style it differently tonight than he would any other day of the week. Truth be told, he doesn’t know why he even bothered buying new clothes for this stupid dance. It isn’t like he has much of anyone to impress. Christ, he doesn’t even have a date to this stupid thing.

When he goes downstairs, his father is standing there peering out the window from behind the curtains. “Your friends are here,” he says, and Stiles had expected that. The Sheriff turns from the window and looks at him a bit critically, up and down. “No girl this year, huh?”

“No girl this year,” he admits, and then thinks that there will probably never be a girl ever again. The thought comes unbidden and he isn’t sure how he feels about it, so he just shrugs and pulls his wallet and phone into his pockets before reaching for his hoody dangling off of a hook by the door. 

“A hoody to the dance?” His father raises his eyebrows. “You’re really phoning it in this year, huh?” 

“It’s just the homecoming dance, dad. Not prom.” 

His dad still looks a bit skeptical, but he says, “all right, well. Home by midnight, okay?”

“Oh, I can guarantee I’ll be home long before midnight,” he winks and sighs, dipping his arms into his sweatshirt. “This isn’t high on my list of Friday night fun things, trust me.” 

“All right,” he repeats again, continuing to seem puzzled at Stiles’ sudden melancholy. Probably, he chalks it up to the fact that Stiles is going alone, which is fine with Stiles. The truth? The whole questioning his sexuality thing and getting closer and closer to a definitive answer thanks to, of all fucking people, Derek Hale? His father could never imagine, outside of his nightmares. “Well, have fun.” 

“Fun, fun, fun,” Stiles mocks, opening the front door. “See you in an hour.” 

Out he goes, closing the door gently behind him. Scott is there, with Allison in the passenger seat of his mom’s half way decent car. It’s nicer than Stiles’ piece of shit at least, and he’s trying to show Allison a good time, so Stiles had agreed to back seating it in the mom mobile for the evening. They wave at him as he approaches the car, and when he gets in he notes that both of them look a whole lot nicer than he does. Allison is in a short sparkly number with a corsage courtesy of Scott, and Scott actually has on a jacket. 

Stiles had gone with a button down tucked into the nicest pair of pants he owns. If he had his way he’d show up in pajamas. 

“So, we’re not drinking tonight because I have to drive,” Scott adjusts the rear view mirror so he can look Scott in his eyes as he speaks. “But you can, if you want!”

Stiles waves his hand. “No, thanks. I don’t feel up to it tonight. Plus, I don’t want to be the only one drinking.”

“Someone is going to have liquor at this thing,” Scott assures him, as though Stiles is worried about it. Everyone knows that the person who would have liquor at this thing is Derek Hale, and Christ. Stiles doesn’t have the mental capacity for thinking about that fucking guy. 

“Who do we think is going to win king and queen? Derek and Erica or Lydia and Jackson?” 

Stiles wishes he could take back saying he doesn’t want to drink - that sentence alone is begging to be washed down with a stiff sip of something. “Oh, Christ.” 

“No offense, but probably Derek and Erica,” Scott looks at Stiles in the mirror again, as if checking for his reaction. Stiles makes a face and mimics Scott under his breath, glaring out the window. “They exude king and queen energy.”

What an insane thought it is, what an insane truth, that the entire relationship is a sham from start to finish? And everyone stands there and thinks wow, how picturesque and how perfect it all is, they’re so perfect, they’re the king and the queen. Meanwhile, Derek has early onset alcoholism and has kissed Stiles two times after spending years beating him to a pulp. 

To the dance they go, and the gym is done up to look like a sparkly red nightmare. There’s a disco ball the size of a rhino hanging above their heads, streamers, balloons, and, most importantly, a snack table. Stiles bee lines it for the chips as soon as he sees them, leaving Allison and Scott in his wake, not that they mind. 

He gets a cup of punch and a fistful of chips, shoveling them into his mouth with no decorum. Almost everyone here has got a date, it would appear, though as he scans the gym he sees more than a few sad singles just like himself. There’s Freddy Highmore, because of course there is, and then Stiles catches sight of Seth. 

They meet eyes and Seth isn’t awkward about it. He just smiles like they’re good chums and then goes back to his conversation, nonchalant as all get out. Stiles figures he’s kissed his fair share of random boys, and feels jealous about that, because he wishes he could just kiss boys and not feel all twisted up in knots about it. 

He gets some more chips and stands there, for the first time all night feeling sort of like a sad sack of shit. And to make matters worse, that’s the exact moment Lydia decides to appear like a specter out of his sleep paralysis nightmares, glistening in a gold dress. 

She eye of Mordors him, cocking her head to the side as she casually scoops herself some punch. “I have some vodka if you’re interested,” she says, and Stiles grimaces. 

“It’s enticing, but no thank you.” 

“Okay,” she spikes her own punch and sips, eyeing him up and down. “You look like you don’t give a shit.” 

“That is exactly the look I was going for.” 

“You know,” she comes closer to him, resting her palm on the table as she presses her body as close to him as she likely dares to get anymore. “I really liked you, Stiles. I still do. I don’t have any hard feelings.” 

“You broke up with me, not the other way around, so of course you don’t,” but he turns to look at her, and she’s being totally and completely sincere, which can be really rare for her. “That’s nice of you to say, though.” 

She nods. “I’m sorry for being a drunk ass at my party.” 

“Don’t worry about that, trust me,” he laughs, looking down into his regular old not-spiked punch. “I later encountered a much more drunk and bigger ass, so you didn’t seem so bad in comparison.”

“Yeah,” she scans across the party and smiles, this odd secretive smile that’s very telling of who she really is, at the core of her. “Derek is a fucking asshole.” 

“Who said it was Derek?” 

“It’s always Derek, Stiles,” she assures him, gesturing across the gym, so Stiles lays eye on the man in question for the first time since the night began. He’s standing in a gaggle of his admirers, his football buddies and the cheerleaders and Erica Reyes is there on his arm, and he’s got this way of looking untouchable even though Stiles has certainly touched him before. “I can’t wait for him to graduate.” 

With that, she sweeps off across the floor in her gown, off to find her new boyfriend Stiles is sure of it, leaving him by himself to stand and stare at Derek Hale across the gym. He’s in all black like he’s going to a funeral instead of the dance, and he laughs like he hasn’t got a care in the world even though Stiles knows better, and they make eye contact across the gym. 

Stiles sips his punch and looks away, before Derek can do that smiling thing he’s been doing in Stiles’ direction for days now. He just can’t take another mind game. The issue is that he looks really good, and Stiles hates that he can even think something like that, in light of everything that has happened. 

God, Stiles used to hate him like it was his job. Now, he isn’t so sure. 

Allison and Scott find him and make him less pitiable by giving him some friends to talk to, convincing them to dance with them and sucking him into their circle. It’s actually fun, just the handful of them, underneath all the glitter and the lights. The DJ isn’t half bad and Stiles convinces himself to forget his problems, at least for an hour, so that his entire high school experience isn’t eclipsed by the fact that he doesn’t know who he is. No one in this room knows who they are either. They’re just a lot better at pretending than Stiles is. 

The time comes for King and Queen to be announced - and Stiles hadn’t voted. The entire room knows who’s going to win either way. Although Lydia and Jackson are as attractive as they come, there’s something to be said for the “it” factor. Derek and Erica certainly have that, just by matching the picture perfect stereotype to a T. Derek is wealthy and troubled and absurdly attractive and the star quarterback of a previously failing football team, and Erica is squeaky clean in a way that only a cheerleader in high school can seem to be. It’s a match made in teen drama heaven. 

Stiles feels embittered by it, because he knows it’s just Derek playing his hand exactly right. It’s a burdensome secret, one of many he has to carry on his shoulders. 

In the glow of the disco ball he stands and watches with a sort of detachment as Derek and Erica win, and the crowd on the dance floor erupts into applause. Lydia looks politely miffed, clapping with her teeth grit tight in a smile, and Allison and Scott give half hearted applause if only for Stiles’ sake. 

Erica is first up on the stage in a metallic purple dress that catches the light, and Derek is close behind. He trips on the top step and almost goes down, but catches himself at the last second with a laugh. Unfortunately, he had used the drum set on stage to do so, and it comically clatters as though someone had just told a good joke. Erica’s smile falters like she’s just become aware her boyfriend is too drunk in public, and Derek enthusiastically accepts his crown and gestures for Erica to do the same. 

Roses are thrust into Erica’s arms, and she accepts them with a tight smile. She suddenly seems uncomfortable up there, and Stiles feels bad for her. He feels bad that she liked him so much and he treated her like she didn’t exist because he wasn’t sure if he could give her what she wanted, and he feels bad that Derek is a fucking asshole and is shitfaced wasted up there when this was clearly important to her, and chief of all, he feels bad that Derek has kissed him. That he lies to her every day just because he’s scared of what he really feels. 

It’s not that Stiles is any better. He’s really not. He’s a liar too. 

He hears Lydia say, “Christ, he’s making an ass of himself again,” and he palms his face and feels terrible. “I told Erica, I told her so.” 

Stiles wonders what exactly it is that Lydia had told Erica the second Derek expressed any interest in her, as Derek takes the microphone and starts making some half-assed speech that no one is listening to much because they all know he’s drunk. _He’s an asshole, he doesn’t care about anything but himself, he burns through girls every year_ , and Stiles wonders if Erica had insisted it would be different this time. 

“This is hard to watch,” Allison says, but Scott is laughing. At her sharp look, he quickly stops and tries to look somber, but a glance around the room shows that most people feel the exact same way - they think it’s funny. Here’s Derek, flaunting the rules in front of the chaperones by being drunk up there on the mic, because he’s rich and good looking and a god. He can do whatever he wants. 

It ends, finally, and the microphone is taken away from Derek by a haggard looking member of the student council. They leave the stage and Derek almost goes down hard again, catches himself on the railing down the stairs, and as they descend to the floor, Erica rounds on him and looks upset. She says something that Stiles can’t lip read, and Derek laughs and says something back that has her flinching like she can’t believe how shitty he’s being, and Stiles looks away. 

It was doomed from the start, but that doesn’t make him feel any better about it. 

He excuses himself to the restroom, and he’s not surprised when he looks in the mirror as he’s washing his hands and sees Derek stepping inside. “You have an uncanny ability for showing up the second I’m alone,” he says, no shortage of venom in his tone. “Kinda like you watch me and wait for it.” 

Derek puts his hands in his pockets. “What if I do?”

“I get the impression your girlfriend is crying somewhere in there,” he gestures to the wall, where beyond it, Erica certainly is.

He grins this grimacing smile, one that doesn’t offer any genuine mirth. “You think I’m a piece of shit, you’ve always thought so.”

“You do shitty things,” he wipes his hands off with a paper towel, tossing it into the bin. “You say shitty things. Whether you’re genuinely a shitty person, deep down, I don’t know. So no, I don’t think that.” 

Derek sighs and looks drunk, super drunk, and Stiles knows from experience that’s when he’s at his most loose-cannon style, and this makes Stiles nervous. Not that he thinks Derek will hurt him, not at all, but that he thinks he’ll do something unpredictable. “It’s not working out.” 

“She seems to think -“

“Well, I fucked up, I know that, I don’t need one of your fucking lectures.” 

Stiles is taken aback by his choice of words - one of Stiles’ _lectures_ , as though there have been many occasions where Stiles has really let him have it. Stiles guesses he has in the past been known to call Derek on his bullshit, but he never for one second thought that anything he said ever seeped through his holier-than-thou skin. Maybe he had been wrong about that. 

“Break up with your girlfriend,” he advises, and then shrugs, moves to walk past Derek out of the bathroom. “Or don’t. Whatever. But I really don’t want to be involved in -“ 

Derek throws his arm out to block Stiles’ path, abrupt, leveling him with a very drunk, very intense stare. “You can’t ignore me forever.” 

“Sure I can. Can you let me -“

“You should know how often I think about you,” this is said low, basement low, the lowest timber of Derek’s voice. It sends a chill down the back of Stiles’ neck. “I think about you all the time, and you won’t even look in my direction.” 

“Oh, my god,” Stiles runs his hands down his face. This is quickly feeling like it’s out of his hands, like he can’t control how this is gonna go, not at all. “You. Are. Drunk.”

“I’m being honest,” like this is a revelation for him, to tell Stiles of all people the truth, he says this. “I want you. It feels wrong, but it’s true.” 

Stiles feels cagey and crazy, absolutely insane, and he can’t stay in this room with Derek for another second because he doesn’t know what he’ll do. He doesn’t want to be shitty and he doesn’t want to kiss someone that someone else in the next room is crying over, but the truth is...he wants to kiss him. 

After all this time and after everything he’s been through with this boy in front of him, it feels crazy to admit it. After all this time of denying it even to himself, who he is what he wants, it’s out of left field that it would be Derek Hale, in the end. 

But he can’t do that. He pushes Derek’s arm out of his way, and Derek steps back to let him pass through the door - it’s a lucky thing then, that that’s exactly when Theo Raeken opens up the bathroom door. He sees the scene in front of him, Derek and Stiles looking very seriously at one another, and blinks in surprise. Obviously this is not what he expected to find in the pisser. 

“Get your shit together,” Stiles snaps at Derek, and then he skirts around Raeken to finally get out of there, that tight room where the air is too hot and Derek is too close to him. 

As he moves down the darkened hallway he hears Theo laugh and say to Derek, “what was that faggot’s problem?”

Of course Derek doesn’t correct him. He doesn’t say “hey man, don’t say shit like that,” he doesn’t say a fucking thing. He says, “I don’t know.”

**

The news of Erica and Derek’s breakup ripples across the school a week after Homecoming - and some people, bless their hearts, are actually surprised by it. Like God, how could it be? Not the king and queen of Homecoming, anything but that!

But most people are bitterly unimpressed by the news. Stiles is studying in the library when he overhears Lydia and Allison talking about it, whispering just loud enough that Stiles can hear it at the next table over. 

“Surprise, surprise,” Lydia says, rolling gloss over her lips and raising her eyebrows. “He shits all over another relationship.” 

“What do you think like…” Allison lowers her voice, looking over her shoulder to make sure no one of note will overhear her, “...the issue is? You think it’s him?” 

“Uh, yeah. I’m pretty sure it’s him.”

“But why?”

“Well,” she starts, and Stiles tries not to listen anymore, but he can’t help himself. “He’s a budding alcoholic, let’s start there.”

“Christ,” Allison is startled by the frankness of it. 

“I just wonder who his next victim is going to be. Another cheerleader, no doubt.”

Stiles lowers his head and tries to be invisible - as though he’s genuinely petrified one of the girls would say ‘huh, what about Stilinski?’ The thought is absurd, impossible, but there he is cowering all the same. “Jesus, I don’t know. He’s gone through so many and they’re all good friends -“

“They are not that good of friends, trust me,” Lydia scoffs and leans back in her seat, lifting an eyebrow up. “Maybe he’ll wise up and stop dating altogether so he can figure his own shit out.” 

Stiles thinks he’s heard enough, so he stands and shakily starts putting his books back into his bag. If the way he’s moving or acting is suspicious at all, neither of the girls notice it. They keep talking in hushed tones and keep their backs to him, while Stiles zips his bag up and feels shitty, again. 

When he had told Derek to breakup with his girlfriend he didn’t think it was advice that would actually be taken seriously. It feels like his fault, but then he placates himself with the knowledge that it was undoubtedly the right thing and what had to be done. 

As he’s just pulling the straps of his bag onto his shoulders, a girl he recognizes as also being a cheerleader starts bee lining it for him from the double doored entrance. She’s got a tight blonde ponytail and a hot pink slip from the office clutched in her hands, and Stiles sighs and wonders what all this is about now. 

She whispers, “hi, Stiles,” as soon as she’s in ear shot, and Stiles feels bad he doesn’t remember her name. 

“Hi,” he gestures to the note in her hand, “am I in trouble?”

Her teeth are bright white as she smiles, handing him the note with a shrug. “Maybe.” Then she’s gone, off like a shot to go back to office aiding. The note is crisp, freshly made, and Stiles huffs out a deep breath when he reads its contents in the familiar writing of the principal. 

He’s been summoned to the office at the end of the day, after the last bell has rung and everyone else gets to go home. Typically, that bodes nothing positive. 

When Stiles shows up and is ushered inside the principal’s office to find not only the principal but Derek Hale seated right across from him, Stiles seriously considers making a break for it. Jumping out the window, leaping to his death, barrel rolling out the door and taking cover under the nearest desk. 

Mr. Keenan reads this facial expression loud and clear, so he gestures with one hand for Stiles to enter. “No one’s in trouble, Stiles. Come on in, it’s nothing bad.” 

Stiles hesitates. Derek looks over his shoulder and makes eye contact, boring into his skull like laser pointers, and there’s that fight or flight response again. The last time they looked at each other was when Derek was drunk at homecoming, in the bathroom, boxing him in and saying he wanted Stiles. Now, Derek looks at him almost the same way, if a little more clear headed. 

He moves into the room and sets his backpack down on the ground with a thump, slowly settling in to the chair right next to Derek. Derek stares at him the whole time but Stiles keeps his eyes pointed everywhere, everywhere in the room but at him. “What’s all this about?”

Mr. Keenan gestures to the two boys like it’s obvious. “Well, it’s been a couple of months and there’s been no major incidents.” 

Oh, there have been major incidents. 

“I just wanted to congratulate you boys and let you know it hasn’t gone unnoticed.” 

Neither Derek nor Stiles says a word. They don’t look at each other or smile or do anything - just sit there and wait for this to get wrapped up. 

Sensing the tension in the room but assuming it’s coming from another place entirely, Mr. Keenan clears his throat and pulls open a side drawer on his desk. “Good behavior shouldn’t go unrewarded, so I just wanted to give you each a couple of these.” 

He holds both hands out, one to Derek and the other to Stiles, presenting them each with two very familiar looking little pieces of paper. They’re off-campus lunch passes, as good as gold as far as your average student is concerned, especially upperclassmen. Having one of these bad boys means you get to sign out and disappear off school property for an hour during your lunch, doing whatever you might please to do. 

Derek is into it. He snatches his quickly as if Mr. Keenan might change his mind, tucking them safely into a folder inside his backpack. Stiles takes his with a bit less mirth, because while a major socialite like Derek might relish the idea of taking off to eat Chinese food with his friends, Stiles could sort of take it or leave it. 

“If you boys keep this up. I think those scholarships of yours should be just fine,” he grins, and then thankfully sends them off on their ways. Stiles thinks this was a huge waste of his time as he stuffs his own passes into a side pocket in his backpack, likely to be forgotten about until he cleans his bag out at the end of the year. 

Up he goes, and out of the office with a wave at Mr. Keenan, until he’s in the main hallway, sliding his backpack onto his shoulders. It either is or isn’t a surprise that he finds Derek out there waiting for him, hands stuffed into his jacket pockets and looking serious - Stiles gave up on trying to figure out what that boy will do next weeks ago. Sometimes he wants nothing to do with Stiles, sometimes he goes out of his way to get Stiles alone, sometimes he wants to punch Stiles in the face, sometimes he wants to kiss Stiles on the mouth. 

Today, like most days, Derek’s face is impossible to read. Stiles keeps walking, chin up, barely glancing in Derek’s direction. He doesn’t have time for this. 

“Hey,” Derek says, walking backwards in stride with Stiles, “we need to talk.” 

“I don’t have time for this,” Stiles says this out loud, and Derek takes two huge steps backwards and rounds on Stiles, effectively cutting him off and stopping him in his tracks.

He looks annoyed, and that is an expression that Stiles recognizes. “Oh, what could you possibly have going on? Homework?” 

Stiles grips the straps of his backpack and thinks about making a run for it. He looks past Derek’s broad shoulders and sees no one, not a single soul, the hallways empty, everyone already out of the building or tucked away in a classroom for an after school club. Once again, Derek has finagled his way into being alone with Stiles, just the way he likes it, and Stiles feels cornered. “You beg me to talk to you and then immediately start making fun of me,” he snaps. 

“I’m not begging,” Derek says this lightning quick, agitated at having to say it at all. Right. He’s likely never had to beg anyone for anything in all his years of being alive - everything at his beck and call, handed to him on a silver platter. “You just insist on being impossible. We need to -“ he thrusts his hands out, at a loss for words it would seem. “You know I broke it off with Erica.” 

Stiles stares at him, and stares, and Derek stares back - expectantly awaiting some kind of reaction. “Uh, what do you want? A trophy for ending your fraudulent relationship?” 

“It wasn’t fraudulent.”

Stiles looks past his head somewhere and makes a face. “Okay. Anyway -“ He moves to side step around him, maybe bump into his shoulder on his way to be a little bitch and to make Derek angry if nothing else - but Derek grabs him. 

Takes him and shoves him, so Stiles’ backpack hits a row of lockers with a clang that echoes in the long and empty hallways. Stiles is startled, and then their faces are close again, and Stiles has this horrifying thought that maybe Derek is going to try and kiss him again right here and now, in plain sight. 

But, of course, Derek would never do that. Not out here, not like this. 

Derek looks him in his eyes, keeps his hands on Stiles’ shoulders. “You know why I did it.” 

Stiles swallows a fist sized lump in his throat and he doesn’t know what to say. All smartass remarks have been wiped clean from his head, he’s got no comeback. All he has is he and Derek’s shared breaths, in and out. 

“You know it was about you.” 

“That’s so fucked,” Stiles says this automatically, because it’s what he knows he’s supposed to say. It is so fucked that Derek would break up with his perfect beautiful cheerleader girlfriend for Stiles, it is so fucked that they’re standing here like this, touching each other no matter how innocuous those touches might be. “That was a mistake.” 

Derek takes his hands off of Stiles and then a step back, tugging down on the hem of his jacket. But he doesn’t say anything, and so Stiles has to fill the silence, because if they just stand here staring at each other like this, they might…

“You didn’t mean that shit you said to me in the bathroom,” he says, and it’s not a question. “You were just drunk.” 

Derek’s face splits into a grin, but it’s not a nice one. He doesn’t seem to find anything funny, he’s just grinning because he’s completely fucking unhinged, crazy - Stiles knows the feeling. “I do a lot of stupid things when I drink, but lying isn’t one of them.” 

Stiles looks away, down the hall - to the double doors, where he can see other kids walking around in the parking lot through the windows. That is not what he wanted to hear. At the same time, it is. It’s so hard to make sense of any of it. 

Derek says the worst thing he could possibly say, which is, “I know you want me, too.” 

“What makes you think that?” Stiles squares his shoulders and tries to look tough, serious, to keep his face as blank as a slate. 

“Because everybody does,” he shrugs. 

Stiles scrunches his nose up and says, “oh, gag. Get out of my face.” He makes shooing gestures with his hands and Derek does actually take a couple of steps back, which surprises Stiles. “You are a fucking asshole.” 

“What did I say that was so bad?” 

Stiles looks at him and starts walking away. He makes it five steps and stops in his tracks, palming his forehead. Quickly, he turns on his heel and puts his finger in Derek’s face so Derek goes cross eyed to look at it. “You think this whole universe and everyone in it revolves around you, like you’re fucking royalty. It’s your worst personality trait, it makes me want to throw soda in your face.” 

As though this entire thing amuses him, Derek crosses his arms over his chest and raises his eyebrows. “Is that so?” 

“Like you can’t imagine, not for one god damn second, that someone might actually not want a single thing to do with you.” 

“I can imagine that just fine,” he says this slowly, a smile creeping across his face. “Plenty of people hate me.” 

“Me,” Stiles points to his own chest. 

“And the thing that you hate most about me now is how bad you don’t,” Derek says this, like it’s nothing, and then he smirks and walks away. Stiles stands there blinking after him until he’s gone out the school’s doors, vanishing once they’re closed. 

Stiles swallows another lump in his throat, and notices his hands are clammy with sweat. He wipes them off on his jeans and feels like he’s standing out in the open with no clothes on, or something - like he’s been exposed. 

His phone buzzes in his pocket and he fumbles for it, nearly dropping it because his hands are shaking. It’s a text from Scott demanding to know if he’s coming anytime soon - likely he saw Derek emerge and is now wondering where Stiles is. 

Out the doors he goes, feeling like he’s outside of his own body as he does, just going through the motions of the stairs and dodging other kids and walking down the path to where his car is always parked. Derek’s car is still sitting there, him in it, the sun shining on his tan skin so it’s illuminated even through the dark windows. 

Stiles clears his throat and ducks his head down, vowing not to look over at Derek again as he pops open his driver’s side door. Scott is already in the passenger seat playing around on his phone as he likely has been for the past forty-five minutes, awaiting Stiles’ return so he could go home. 

“So?” He asks, as Stiles slams his door behind himself and starts the engine. “What happened?” 

Stiles holds the steering wheel and stares dead ahead, frowning. “Nothing.” 

“Nothing?” He seems surprised. 

“Oh, you mean at the meeting,” he remembers, just now, that there was a meeting. Mr. Keenan and Derek. Scott doesn’t know about the hallway, couldn’t possibly imagine all the things Derek had said to him. “Uh, he gave us off campus lunch passes.” 

Scott puts his hands up the way referees do when someone makes a touchdown in football and yells ‘score’ at the top of his lungs, long and drawn out. Stiles hears Derek start his own engine with a quiet purr next to them, and he wonders what Derek is thinking. 

If he ever goes home and keeps thinking of Stiles, like he had drunkenly proclaimed in the bathroom. If he lies awake at night and thinks that no one can ever know, but that it won’t stop him, because when you really want someone, nothing can stop it. 

If Derek really wants him, at all.


	3. The Museum and the Yearbook

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is twice as long as any other because I couldn’t think of a good way to split it up. Also most editing was done with white claws so pardon any mistakes there are likely to be.

Stiles works part time, about two nights during the week and one weekend morning, at one of the local grocery stores - the one closet to his house, with an attached Starbucks and a little bakery sitting area. For the most part he’s a slave to the register, scanning and scanning and making small talk with the same two or three hundred people on a constant loop every single day. It’s actually not that bad; most people are decent if not at least nice, and the few assholes there are Stiles can handle. 

Probably the worst part about his job is that there is a guarantee that someone he knows will come through at least once a day. Be it friend, extended family member, vague acquaintance from school, or even teachers - Stiles sees them all. Maybe some of them actively avoid his checkout line just to save them from the awkward small talk, but the fact remains they at least make awkward eye contact for a second or two. 

Derek Hale is one person who Stiles never, ever, ever sees here. Except for the first time, 2 years ago, when Stiles had first started. Derek had walked in, grabbed a basket, looked up, saw Stiles, put his basket back, and walked out. That was the last of him ever since. 

All the same, it’s not a surprise in the strictest sense when Stiles finishes one transaction with a handoff of a long receipt and a “have a nice day” “thanks, you too”, and turns to make eye contact with Erica Reyes. She comes here. She comes with her mother a few times a week and gets regular groceries, comes by herself or with her cheerleaders for ice cream and candy and pop corn for sleepovers. 

It still startles Stiles to see her because it almost seems as though their relationship, which was next to nonexistent before, is now somehow altered. It’s like they know each other differently, in some way, out there in the cosmos, in a way that makes Stiles uncomfortable and that Erica can’t even imagine, because she doesn’t know. She has no idea, and Stiles isn’t exactly itching to tell her. 

“Oh,” he says, and then he really looks at her. Normally she’s done up, even when she’s in just her sweats and a ponytail - she at least brushes her hair and wipes her face clean or even puts on a bit of makeup. Today, her hair is frizzed with the suggestion that she hasn’t washed it. There’s old makeup smeared a bit under her eyes, and there’s a stain or two on her pink t-shirt. To put it gently, she does not look very good at all. 

Stiles clears his throat and decides to avert his eyes to what she’s got laid out on the belt. A frozen dinner, ice cream, a pack of Diet Coke, and a box of chocolates. This is even worse to look at. 

He makes the executive decision to be nice to her. Not that he’s normally mean to her or really ever has been - but he...feels bad. Like it’s his fault, which isn’t fair.

“Erica Reyes,” he greets, slapping a sly smile on his face, the one that people know him for. She holds her wallet and keys in her hand and sort of grimaces a smile at him. “This is a dinner of champions you have here.” 

She sort of assesses him for a moment as he scans the frozen food and then the ice cream, the robotic boops the only sound between them for several seconds. It’s like she’s trying to decide between being a bitch to him or just tolerating it, which is honestly a look he’s accustomed to. “Stiles Stilinski,” she says back, her voice a little hoarse, perhaps from disuse. “You don’t have to suddenly remember I exist just because Derek broke up with me and you feel bad.” 

Stiles scans her diet cokes and pauses for a moment, a little taken aback by the frankness of what she’s just said. He hadn’t meant to act like she was invisible, and he really hadn’t meant for her to notice. He just...well. “I don’t feel bad,” he says, which is a lie, and she knows it - her eyebrow lifts. “Okay. Fine. I feel bad. But I’ve always known you existed,” he clears his throat and hates the fact that no one has lined up behind her, so he has no excuse to get out of this conversation. “Just uh -“

“Spare me,” she says. 

“It’s $24.68.” 

As she digs her debit card out of her wallet with chipped pink nails, she huffs and averts her eyes. “I’m well aware that Derek Hale’s reject pile is not the best place to be,” she goes on, and Stiles wishes he could disappear. He taps his foot impatiently as the chip gets read, as it begs Erica to pull her card out, as the system processes the payment. “I mean, I guess you were always right.”

The receipt prints, and Stiles practically rips it in half in his haste to get it in his hands and into hers. 

She takes it and assesses him, head to toe. He feels like she’s doing a Lydia - seeing straight through him. But she’s not, really, because she couldn’t possibly imagine all the things that Stiles isn’t telling her. Couldn’t fucking imagine them. “Derek is an asshole after all,” she takes her bag with a rustle and shrugs, like it’s nothing, like she doesn’t care. But she does. She probably really liked him and felt really special that it seemed like he liked her back, and it probably doesn’t feel too good to realize he actually doesn’t think she’s very special, at all. 

She leaves and doesn’t say anything else, but Stiles grips the edge of the counter and feels terrible. It’s really not his fault that Derek chose to do that and that she was just the vehicle he used to do it, but Derek’s never going to feel sorry for it, so he reckons somebody has to. 

When his shift is over and he’s driving home, he goes past Derek’s house just like he always has to on the way to his own. It’s lit up, all three stories of windows glowing like everyone is home, and Stiles slows down and wonders which of those yellow squares is Derek’s bedroom window. If he’s in there, right now, if he’s thinking about Stiles at the same time. 

He used to drive by and imagine all the ways he could TP the place, or throw a rock through his windows, or break into the garage and key his car. Everything feels like it’s gotten out of hand, way more than it ever did when they used to actually want to hurt each other. 

Stiles knows he doesn’t feel that way about Derek anymore, in spite of everything. But he isn’t so sure the same can be said for Derek’s feelings about him.

**

At school the following morning, Stiles slides into his spot two seconds before Derek does his own. Scott is in Stiles’ ear yabbering about how there’s going to be tacos for lunch today and he can’t wait and he hopes they’ll let him have a third one even though they almost never do - but as Stiles gets out of his seat and plants his feet on the asphalt, his eyes are magnetized to Derek’s. He can’t even see them, not properly, because Derek has got his sunglasses on.

But he knows Derek is looking back, feels it in the way his hair stands on end on the back of his neck. 

They pass each other in the halls once during the first half of the day, Derek lazing his way through the halls as though nothing matters and Stiles hating him for it, and again, they meet eyes. Derek is chewing gum and he seems to pop it in Stiles’ direction, raising his eyebrows and smirking - Stiles grips his backpack tighter and swallows, averting his eyes and feeling shaky.

This is nothing like the way they used to look at each other. They used to look at each other like they were going to kill the other one, like they’ve never hated anything more than each other, in a way that was more funny than it was anything else. 

There is not a single thing about this that’s funny, now. It makes Stiles’ hands sweat, his head pound, his heart backflip, his throat swell. It’s electric, when Derek looks at him. In the worst possible way. It makes Stiles more afraid of what they’re going to do to each other than he’s ever been before. 

Christ, they used to try to beat each other’s heads into solid pavement, and it was not as scary as this. 

Stiles has a hard time concentrating in AP History, his mind wandering, eyes staring out the window instead of at the board where the notes are, his hand clicking his pen incessantly instead of taking any of the notes down. He thinks about Derek, and Derek, and what Erica had said and just Erica in general, and how he shouldn’t be thinking about Derek or any of this but especially not Derek and it all feels so loud and out of control in his head that he -

“Can I run to the restroom really quick?” Stiles puts his hand up and asks, and Mrs. Rose looks down her glasses at him from the front of the room. 

She writes him a quick hallway pass and sends him on his merry way - where out in the hallway it’s cool and not as stifling as it was in the classroom. But his head still feels fuzzy as he rubs his temples and heads for the nearest bathroom, turning the corner down C Hall and huffing out a sigh. 

As he looks up, it should make him turn around and go another way when he sees Derek heading toward him from the opposite end of the hall. He’s toting his own pink hallway slip, and he’s still chewing the same gum from before, and Stiles should really turn back around and go to History class. 

He doesn’t. They keep walking towards each other and it becomes very clear that Derek intends to go exactly wherever Stiles goes, be that the bathroom or the nearest classroom or back down the hall - Derek will follow. Stiles is magnetically pulled, a centrifugal motion that he can’t control, and he pushes his way into the bathroom three steps before Derek does. 

He’s inside, and there’s no one else here, not until Derek slides inside right behind him. Stiles faces him and his palms sweat, his breath goes shaky, watching Derek push the door closed behind himself and then lock it. 

Stiles backs up, dropping his hallway pass on the floor because he forgot his hands were holding anything. Derek advances on him and doesn’t say anything, looks Stiles in his eyes like he’s not afraid of it, like he doesn’t care, until his eyes glance down at Stiles’ lips for just a moment. 

It’s long enough that Stiles knows what Derek intends to do once they’re close. Once Derek is there, right there, until they’re sharing the same hot, quick breaths, until Derek puts his hands on Stiles’ shoulders. 

Neither of them say anything, not a word. Stiles guesses there just isn’t that much for them to say to each other anymore. What’s the use? 

This time when Derek kisses him, it’s not a surprise. It doesn’t stun him, it doesn’t make him clam or freeze up - it’s not just Derek kissing him. They kiss each other. Once, fast, pulling away to look at each other. They breathe. 

The next thing Stiles knows, it’s frantic, it’s like if they don’t touch each other they’ll go crazy even though touching each other at all is by all counts much crazier. Derek is rough with him, grabbing him so hard Stiles is sure it will bruise, manhandling him back until his legs bump into the counter where the sinks are all lined up, but he doesn’t stop there. 

He hefts Stiles up onto the counter and pushes his body in between Stiles’ legs, and it feels insane. Like at any second they’re going to wake up from some shared fever dream, like they’ll shove each other away and spit on the floor to get the taste of each other out of their mouths. 

But they just keep kissing each other, touching each other. 

Derek is rough in a way that’s familiar to Stiles but, at the same time, is completely alien. Because it doesn’t make him angry and it doesn’t make him want to hit him - Derek tugs on Stiles’ hair and licks into his mouth like he belongs there, like that’s his now. Puts his hands on Stiles’ chest and runs them up and down, while all Stiles can do is try to follow along. It’s too much and not enough, too much and not enough, for minutes on end. 

At one point, Derek tugs Stiles’ shirt aside to suck a mark into his shoulder, to bite him so Stiles hisses and groans. The sound must be like catnip to Derek, because he bites again and Stiles makes a similar sound and jerks, but not to get away. He doesn’t want to get away. Derek leaves a mark and seems satisfied, pulling up to look Stiles in the face. 

They stare at each other and pant, pant, searching their faces. In Derek’s eyes Stiles sees satisfaction mingling with this unhinged arousal, and Stiles can only imagine that his own pupils are blown, his lips bitten red, his face flushed. 

Stiles says, “I need to get back to class.” 

With a smirk, Derek steps away from where he had been crowding Stiles in. He pulls Stiles bodily off the sink so he lands on shaky feet, unsteady legs, thinks he might topple over. But Derek steadies him and tugs on his shirt, adjusting it back to normal, and then goes for Stiles’ hair. He tugs it this way and that until it’s back to looking like it usually does instead of like someone just ravaged him in the bathroom, and when he’s finished, he pats Stiles on the back and pushes him off toward the door. 

“Go on,” he says, voice normal. Like this is all exactly what he had expected, like he’s not losing his mind as Stiles very obviously is. It’s absurd. 

Stiles unlocks the bathroom door and shoots one last glance at Derek to find him staring right back, arms over his broad chest, cocking his head to the side. He looks more amused than anything else. 

Stiles swallows. And walks out.

**

The next day, what had happened in the C Hall men’s bathroom feels like something Stiles made up in his own head. When he wakes up he wonders if he had dreamed the entire day - but when he went to brush his teeth he glanced at himself in the mirror and he saw the marks on his shoulder that Derek had left there.

Stiles wonders why he had done that. Why he would want any evidence whatsoever of what had happened - because certainly they’re just going to forget about it and act as though none of it had happened at all. That’s the only logical course of action. 

Whatever weird thing has been between them ever since they stopped beating the shit out of one another has been worked out of them, now. They just needed one good make out in a dimly lit bathroom to get it out of their systems, and now they can go on with normal life, acting like they don’t exist to one another. 

Stiles is sure of this when he shuts his locker closed in between his first two classes of the day and happens to look up and spot Derek down the hall. He’s in a gaggle of his football buddies, all wearing their letterman jackets and snickering amongst themselves - making fun of the rest of their classmates, Stiles is sure of it. Derek laughs with them and he has his sunglasses on again, leaning back up against the lockers and looking, by all counts, just the same as always. 

Like nothing had ever happened. Like he hasn’t kissed Stiles, his natural sworn enemy and also another boy three times now, like he didn’t suck and bite marks into Stiles’ shoulder. It’s all the proof that Stiles needs to be sure that whatever was there before isn’t there any longer, and now Stiles can move on with his life. Forget the whole thing. 

It’s more than a little startling, then, when Stiles is walking through a mostly empty hallway during fourth period after being set free from study hall to start his lunch early, and a big pair of hands appears from behind the door of a janitor’s closet. 

They grab him and Stiles is dragged bodily inside the tiny cramped space, a single lightbulb dangling over their heads, as he finds himself staring directly at, of all people, Derek Hale.

“Oh, yikes,” Stiles says, taking a step away from him. He doesn’t get very far, because there isn’t a lot of room to move around in here. He knocks into a shelf of cleaning products and sends a couple spray bottles of windex to the floor. “What are you doing?”

“Getting you alone like I’m so good at doing,” Derek says with a shrug, “like you say I am.” 

Stiles stares at him, from head to toe. He’s still in his letterman jacket, his sunglasses tucked away into a front pocket, his backpack on the floor beside him. There are pins stuck into the breasts of the jacket that Stiles has either never cared about or never noticed before, but now he sweeps them up and down - a slice of pizza, a cartoonish naked girl that Stiles is sure would get confiscated if any member of the staff ever saw it, an alien with his eyes melting out of his skull. 

“I have no interest in being alone with you anymore,” Stiles says this with all the haughtiness he can muster, putting his chin confidently in the air. “I’m done with you.” 

“Oh?” Derek looks like he thinks it’s funny again, like he thinks everything is funny, like nothing fucking matters to him, and Stiles can’t stand him. 

“Yup. Move,” he goes to shove his way past Derek and to the closed door, where on the other side, freedom awaits him. 

Derek manhandles him again. Grabs him by his arms and pulls him back, this give-a-fuck smirk on his face that Stiles remembers from all the arguments they’ve ever had in the past. “Are we doing this, or what?” 

Again, the directness with which Derek throws his words around stupefies Stiles so much that for a moment, all he can do is sputter. “Are we - are we doing this? Just what the hell is _this_ , Derek Hale?” 

As though it’s an answer, Derek leans forward and captures Stiles’ lips, takes them hostage, holds onto Stiles’ arms the way he always does. It muddles Stiles’ thoughts to know that he has knowledge of the way Derek kisses, because he’s got a catalogue of them, at this point. They kiss, and at first, Stiles doesn’t push him away. It’s because he doesn’t want to, but when he finally does give Derek a shove, it’s only because he knows he should. 

Stiles looks at him again. A real hard look. “What is this?”

“What?” He’s really going to play dumb. 

“This!” Stiles gestures to their current situation, the closet, the dark, the closed door. “You broke up with your girlfriend just so you could do this with me?”

“I did not break up with Erica just for you,” he snorts, like the idea of it is so ludicrous, like he didn’t just pull Stiles in here to make out with him. “I did it because it was, like, the right thing to do or whatever.” 

The right thing to do, or whatever. Something tells Stiles that Derek has never once cared about what the right thing to do in any given situation would be. 

“Then what the hell are you doing here with me,” he demands, squaring his shoulders. 

Derek looks at him and grits his teeth, like now he’s mad at Stiles for bringing this up, or for questioning it, for making him say it all out loud. “I don’t know, Stilinski. I don’t know. We’re just -“

The word hangs there in between them and neither of them can finish that sentence. There are no real answers, or if there are, they are ones that neither Derek nor Stiles wants to hear or think about. Either way, they’re here right now looking at one another, all alone in the near dark with no one else around, and this is a situation they’re becoming familiar with - and they know that there is really only one thing to do when they’re here together. 

Derek reaches out and pulls down on the collar of Stiles’ t-shirt, pulling it aside so he can look at the marks he left there. Seeing them makes his lips quirk as though it pleases him, that those are his marks on Stiles. 

“You know, you used to give me black eyes and shit,” Stiles tells him, and Derek lifts his eyes to meet Stiles’. “It’s no different.” 

“Of course it’s different,” he argues, but doesn’t offer any explanation as to how. It just is different, plain and simple, no matter what Stiles thinks about it or says. A mark is a mark. “I know you want to, so let’s just do what we both want.” 

The scary part is, that Derek is right, on both counts. He does want to, and it is what both of them want. They don’t want to think about why, or how, or what it means, they just want to do it. 

So, they do. Derek kisses Stiles and it’s just the same as it was last time - nothing but the sound of their mouths working together, Derek’s hands all over him, pushing him up against the shelves so things clatter all over the ground around their feet. Derek is harsh with him and it feels good, all biting and tough hands and pushing and pulling and tugging on his hair. 

At one point, Derek trails kisses down Stiles’ neck, and Stiles pants and laughs because it tickles. Derek bites and Stiles lets out a sound, small but loud in the quiet space, that has Derek pulling back and grabbing Stiles by his jaw. His fingers are tough, calloused, likely from catching and throwing that stupid football around. 

“I can get you to make better sounds than that,” he threatens this, voice gruff, and Stiles can’t help that he wants it. That he hates Derek and Derek likely hates him right back, but he wants Derek to do things to him. Bad things. Worse than punching him, worse than shoving him. Derek grips Stiles’ face hard, slides his finger along Stiles’ bottom lip, and Stiles wonders if he’s ever been this rough with any of the dozens of girls he’s been with before. 

He really, really bets not. 

“The bell is going to ring soon,” Stiles says in a low voice that doesn’t sound like his own. Derek keeps his hand on Stiles’ face for another couple of seconds, before using it to pull Stiles’ jaw up for another hungry kiss. Just one more, and then he pushes Stiles away towards the door, before adjusting the lapels of his jacket. 

“You taste like cinnamon,” Derek tells him this as though it’s a normal, casual thing to say. It isn’t. It’s heated, pointed, like if they had any more time Derek would be pinning him down and tearing his clothes off, and…

“I chew Big Red,” is all Stiles can think to say, and then he opens the door and goes out only seconds before the bell rings above his head. He goes to lunch, where he finds Scott and Allison parked at their usual table, waving him over enthusiastically. He feels like he’s crazy, wiping at his lips and his face as though Derek could’ve possibly left anything there for his friends to find, see, accuse him of. 

Of course there’s nothing, so when he plops his bag down on the ground and pulls out a chair, the only thing either of them have to say to him is hi. He digs his brown bag lunch out of his backpack and sets it up on the table, while Scott and Allison sort of leer at him with big grins. 

He pulls a peanut butter and jelly out, and they’re still staring at him. “Okay,” he starts, meticulously pulling the crusts off of his sandwich. “What is it?” 

Scott and Allison share a look, all big eyes and smirks, and then they turn to look at him at the same time. “We have found the perfect candidate for a girlfriend.” 

Stiles looks between them and frowns. “Are you two doing a throuple thing?”

“ _What_?” Scott says at the same time Allison hacks out a surprised laugh. “No - for _you_.” 

Oh, yikes. It would be too much to ask for them to drop this entire thing altogether, because they’re going to do it either way. They feel bad for him, because according to popular opinion Lydia cast him off like a piece of trash on the side of the road, and now Erica has been fucking Derek and she was the only other person who has ever apparently taken an interest in him. So they think. 

They also think they’re doing him some big favor by playing matchmaking, like he’s this poor little wounded lonely fox in the forest that they’re nursing back to health. 

“Um,” Stiles says, because what the hell else is he supposed to say to that?

“She’s great, you guys would get along so well,” Allison insists, and Stiles feels like he’s being put on the spot. Like there’s a spotlight on him and a camera hidden somewhere, like everyone is looking at him too closely. 

“Who is it?” He asks, almost afraid to hear the answer. 

“It’s Heather Newman,” Scott says this like he should be thrilled at the prospect, but Stiles’ immediate reaction is to pull away, physically, and make a face. 

“Yikes,” he says this out loud, and Allison is offended. 

“ _Yikes_?” She repeats, like the word itself disgusts her, and Stiles back pedals. 

“No, I mean - no, not yikes. She’s...look, she’s really pretty and whatever, but she’s…” his eyes trail off to where he knows the girl in question will be sitting, and of course, Derek is there too. She’s at the table where Derek always is, laughing and making merry with the other jocks and likeminded individuals because she’s… “...a cheerleader.”

“Since when do you care about that?” Scott asks, visibly miffed by Stiles’ reaction to this whole thing. He probably never imagined Stiles would take issue at being matched with a beautiful cheerleader who has, and Stiles is only repeating what he’s heard other people saying, huge tits. 

Stiles looks at the table again and his eyes skirt right over Heather like she doesn’t exist, to where Derek is shoving a giant sandwich into his face, the mustard dripping down his shirt, and his hands go clammy like they always do, these days. “It’s just - she runs in a different circle.” 

“This isn’t a show on the WB, Stiles,” Allison narrows her eyes at him because she thinks he’s being mean, or difficult, or both at the same time. “You can date a cheerleader even if you’re not high school royalty or whatever.”

“I just mean,” he shakes his head and honestly, he barely knows what he means. He just...can’t do that. He cannot date another girl, he knows he can’t. “I’m just not interested.” 

Scott is dumb, yes, but he’s not stupid. Allison isn’t either. They stare at him like this is an insane thing he’s just said, that he’s not interested in fucking who is according to popular opinion one of the hottest girls in school. 

Stiles stares down at his lunch and waits for them to drop the subject, because he doesn’t know when he realized he didn’t want to date girls anymore. He knows he’s thought about boys ever since he hit puberty, but he never ever thought to himself that girls were completely off the table. 

He looks across the room at Derek again, and they meet eyes. Derek smirks at him, and Stiles feels like this whole thing is out of his control.

**

Stiles has the night off and his father is working the late shift - so once dinner is finished and the dishes are cleared, his dad is out the door and Stiles is left to his own devices. He finishes his homework and sits at his desk, the silence in the house starting to feel like it’s a physical entity that’s pressing down around him, trying to drag him down somewhere.

He turns on some music and stares at an empty piece of notebook paper. Pursing his lips, he sits up and writes PROS on one half of the sheet and CONS on the other, sucking in a deep breath as he finishes. 

Underneath pros he writes _figuring out my sexuality_ and stares at the words for a long time. No one is around to see this, he has to remind himself. But even writing those words down feels like he’s exposing himself to everyone and everything. 

He sighs, and follows it up with a bullet point underneath that says _gay? Then,_ bi?

Probably not bi, he thinks to himself. Probably not. He did have sex with Lydia Martin but that was…

In the cons column, he writes _Derek Hale is an asshole_. Then, a bullet point; _alcoholic_ , then, _shitty person_. But after he writes that last one he sighs and shakes his head. Maybe that’s not fair, necessarily. Stiles has known Derek his whole life, yes, but he’s never really _known_ him. The things that he does know about Derek he couldn’t even use all ten fingers to list off; he knows what people say, and he knows that he’s an asshole yes - but an all around shitty person? 

He scribbles it out so it’s not legible. 

On the pros side he writes _not fighting anymore_. Bullet points _no more black eyes, no more bloody noses_. He thinks for a second. _Not as angry anymore_. 

On the cons side, _Erica_. He taps his pen on the desk and wonders if he even needs to feel bad about her - she’s another person he’s never known, and really, he doesn’t owe her anything. As a bullet point he writes _kissed her boyfriend when they were still together_. Then, _I’m the reason they’re not together._

For the pros, he puts _I want to do it_. Bullet point - _can’t stop thinking about it._

In the cons, he writes, underlines, and circles, _it’s a big secret_. Bullet points - _can’t tell friends, can’t tell dad, can’t tell anyone._

This feels like the worst one out of all the reasons not to do this. He puts his hand over his mouth and looks between the two columns, and there are exactly as many pros as there are cons - and really, he hasn’t learned anything new from this exercise. If anything, he’s only more confused than he was to start with. 

He’s still just staring at the page blankly when he hears a tapping at his window. He immediately assumes it’s a branch from the tree outside slapping against the glass, so he doesn’t even look up. Then, more tapping - louder. 

When he turns, he sees a face in his window and starts, jumping with his hand flying up to his heart. It startles him bad enough that he doesn’t even see who it is, at first - when he looks again, it’s Derek Hale. Of course it is. 

Derek seems amused, likely because he just scared the ever living shit out of Stiles, and it only gets worse when Stiles stands up and practically runs at the window, throwing it open so hard he’s surprised Derek doesn’t fall back and break his neck. 

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” He hisses this in a whisper, noting that Derek is perched perfectly on the roof, bent down, using the window sill to hold on. “What are you doing? What the fuck are you doing?”

“Coming over,” he says, like it’s obvious. “Why are you whispering like that? Your dad’s not even home.” 

Stiles gapes at him. He’s still whispering when he says, “how do you know that?” 

“The cruiser isn’t in the driveway.” 

“So you’re _spying_ on me now?” 

Derek blinks at him. “More like using common sense.” 

“How did you know which window was mine?” 

“I’ve always known this was your window,” he adjusts himself, as though maybe it’s getting a little uncomfortable to be in that position. “The band posters.” 

Stiles looks behind himself at the posters in question and he figures that makes sense - Stiles’ dad wouldn’t be hanging these things up anywhere else in the house. But it still begs the question of why Derek ever looked long enough at Stiles’ house to assess which room had the band posters in it. 

“Are you going to let me in?” He asks, and there’s a grating sound of his shoes rubbing against the roof shingles. 

“Uh, no, no I am not.” 

“Oh, come on,” he says, grinning and nearly slipping again. “It’d be a shame if I fell here and broke my arm and we’d have to call the ambulance and your dad would have to come over and -“

“Okay,” Stiles snaps, stepping away from the window to give Derek space to climb inside - and climb inside he does. He uses the frame to heft himself in, his big, football players’ legs sliding in until he’s in all the way - he rights himself, standing tall, and Stiles has never seen something so bizarre in all his life. 

Derek Hale, in his letterman, jeans, converse, standing in his bedroom. Derek looks at Stiles’ overflowing bookshelf, his clothes scattered all over the floor, his bedside table, his walls littered with posters. “What the hell did you come here for?” 

“I thought we were done asking each other that question,” Derek says, matter of fact and honest as ever, and Stiles has heard him be brutally honest enough times now that he’s assigned it as a character trait. Which is bizarre, considering Erica, and considering what his mother does for a living. “I came here to see you. Maybe get you to say my name in that breathy voice you use when I -“ 

“Okay, wow, holy shit,” Stiles goes up in flame, his whole face, his whole body, red and on fire with embarrassment. No one has ever spoken to him like that before, and Derek does it so... Easily. Like sex is something he’s somehow managed to already ace even though he’s only eighteen. “Uh - don’t say shit like that to me.” 

“Why?” Derek takes his jacket off, tosses it onto Stiles’ desk chair without asking, like he owns the place already. “Because it embarrasses you? You’re not a virgin, everyone knows you and Lydia -“

“Just because I’m not a virgin doesn’t mean this isn’t…” he fumbles for the right words, stumbling over them in his head, not his usual whip-smart, quick witted self at all, not with Derek here. “...I don’t know what - just don’t say shit like that.” 

Derek had distracted Stiles enough that Stiles hadn’t noticed it when Derek’s eyes zeroed right in on what he was just working on - honestly, Stiles had forgotten all about it. He says, “what’s this?”, stepping towards it, and Stiles trips over his own feet in his haste to get to his desk and grab the notebook before Derek can see it. 

“Nothing,” he says, incriminating himself. Derek raises his eyebrows, and Stiles knows he’s doomed himself, but he still rushes to correct. “Just homework.”

“Homework, huh?” Derek moves closer, and Stiles steps back. They’ve gotten into physical fights enough that Stiles knows Derek is faster than him, stronger than him, bigger than him - so he doesn’t know why he really bothers. Derek reaches out and grabs Stiles, eliciting a surprised shout and indignant elbowing. 

Derek reaches underneath Stiles’ arm and tickles him there, so Stiles jerks and laughs involuntarily, giving Derek the perfect chance to pilfer the notebook right out of Stiles’ hand. Once he’s got it, he steps away and grins, holding it up to look at the contents of it himself. 

“Derek, seriously don’t -“

“Pros and cons, huh? Of what?” He assesses it more closely, and his smile gets wider. Stiles palms his face and wants to melt, just disappear into the floor boards, just about anything but this. “Oh, I see.” 

“I just was trying to organize my thoughts,” he explains quickly, even though the damage has most certainly been done. 

“Figuring out my sexuality,” he reads aloud, flashing Stiles a look. “Gay or bi, interesting.” 

Stiles hugs himself and shrugs. He doesn’t know why he says this, since he has not said it to anyone else and lord knows he never thought the first person he’d say this to would be Derek, but he says it all the same. “Probably gay,” he mumbles, and Derek, amazingly, does not make fun of him. 

He just switches over to the cons column, eyebrows going up into his hairline. “Derek Hale is an asshole,” he reads, laughing. “Well, yeah, sure. Alcoholic? Why does everyone think that?” 

Stiles looks somewhere at an imaginary camera like, _really_?

“Then something you scribbled out here -“ he looks close at the paper as if he could make it out, and Stiles is thankful he had completely gone over it again and again with his pen so there’s no chance he’d ever be able to make it out. “Probably just that you’re worried my dick might be too big for you -“

“Derek, come on,” he goes up in flames again and reaches out for the notebook, desperate for the torment to end, but Derek sidesteps out of his reach. 

He reads the bit about Erica and laughs, shaking his head. “You know, the reason Erica and I broke up is because I was never really that interested in her to begin with. It wasn’t really about you.” 

“Oh, great,” this time when he reaches for the notebook, Derek lets him have it. “That makes me feel so much better about the situation.” He hugs the notebook against himself and feels small, with Derek’s eyes on him. 

“Is that really how you make decisions?” Derek asks him, taking a seat at Stiles’ desk and examining the contents there. 

“No,” he says in a low voice, “just - it helps me make sense of things. Sometimes.” 

Derek picks up Stiles’ orange bottle of adderall, rattles it around and sees what it is, doesn’t make a comment, as though it’s not surprising. “So what’s your verdict? You had an equal number of cons and pros.” 

“Yeah, uh - I dunno.” 

“You don’t know,” he repeats, pushing the chair out from the desk so they can face each other a little better. “Here, I thought you knew everything. You act like it.” 

Stiles doesn’t know what to say to that, can only think of something shitty. So he says something shitty. “Everyone thinks you’re an alcoholic because you are one.” 

This either doesn’t bother Derek at all, or it does and he’s choosing to not let Stiles know. He abruptly reaches into his jean pocket and produces his phone - it’s black, no case, because if he were to drop it and smash the screen he’d just buy another one, money a nonissue. “Give me your number.” 

“Uh, what?” Stiles is baffled, a startled laugh bubbling up from his throat. “I really don’t fucking think so, pal.”

“Hey, you wanna do super secret stuff we should probably have a super secret way of communicating,” he waves his phone around and gestures at Stiles like _go on_. “Just give me your number.”

Stiles purses his lips. He’s never really thought about what it would be like if Derek had his phone number before - before, he guesses Derek would’ve probably randomly texted him insults out of the clear blue sky or left threatening voice mail messages. Now, what Derek plans to do with that phone number Stiles can really only guess at. 

He rattles off his number and Derek’s fingers move quick to put it in. Stiles asks, “what’re you putting my name under?” 

Derek looks at him like he’s daft. “Stiles. What should I put it under? Gay Crisis?” 

Stiles sits down on the edge of the bed and puts the notebook down beside him, sighing deep through his nose. “Is that what this is to you? Do you think - I mean…”

“I’m not gay,” he sounds very, very sure of this - like he’s never even questioned it before, despite professing his desire to fuck Stiles several times now, crystal clear. Stiles wishes he could be that sure. “And, no, I was kidding.” 

Stiles isn’t really sure what else he’s supposed to say - he sits and twiddles his thumbs and realizes that he and Derek do not know how to talk to one another. They’ve known each other since they were kids, and yet here they sit, with not a clue what to say, like two strangers. 

Derek puts his phone back in his pocket and gives Stiles this look, this _look_ , that Stiles can say he’s only ever seen in movies before. He says, “why don’t you come here?” 

Well, now, there are a lot of reasons why Stiles shouldn’t go over there - he just wrote them all down in ink, as a matter of fact. He might be closer to realizing he’s gay, finally accepting it even, but the other facts still remain. Derek is an asshole. Derek is troubled and has a lot of problems, the alcohol only just barely scratching the surface. Derek doesn’t even know who he is, won’t assign a name to this thing they’re doing to each other - most likely out of fear of knowing what it really is. 

There are so many reasons not to. And, as his own handwriting will say, just as many to do it anyway. 

Stiles stands up and goes where Derek wants him to, until Stiles’ calves bump up against Derek’s knees where he’s sitting. Derek doesn’t miss a beat - using the loops on Stiles’ jeans to pull him down so he has no choice but to tumble into Derek’s lap. He rights himself, adjusting so his legs are straddling Derek, and he feels awkward because he’s never done this before, even more so because Derek has, and many many times before. 

Derek leans up and kisses Stiles, slow and easy, like they have all the time in the world. He puts his hands underneath Stiles’ shirt, feeling along his bare chest and stomach like the right to do so is a given; after all, Stiles isn’t stopping him. It feels good, and Stiles is in no position to be turning away good feelings. 

“You are skinny,” Derek assesses, pulling away from their kiss just to say this. “I guess I knew that before but - you are really skinny.” 

“Not everyone is on the football team.” He’s defensive when he says this, and Derek can tell.

“No, it’s not a bad thing for me,” he insists, squeezing Stiles’ hips and drawing him even closer, as if it were possible. He moves his hands down, past Stiles’ button on his jeans, and pushes his fingers against the bulge in his pants. He watches Stiles’ face as he does so, so Stiles is compelled to dive forward and hide it in Derek’s neck, so he won’t see. 

Derek cups what he can of Stiles’ erection through the fabric of his jeans and the underwear beneath, rubbing it just enough to elicit a hitched breath and small noise into Derek’s neck, and really all it does is stroke Derek’s already massive ego. 

He can feel Derek’s own hard length against his body, and he wonders if he should reach down and touch it, too. He’s nervous, and he feels trapped under Derek’s hands, unsure of what to do other than just let Derek make him feel good. 

Stiles’ ear is right there, so it’s easy for Derek to turn his head and speak right into it, in a low voice that sends sparks down Stiles’ spine. “Do you want to undress?” 

It’s a big question. Stiles knows that if Derek doesn’t want to have full-on sex then he at least wants to make Stiles come and to come too. He’ll want Stiles to touch him back and it’ll be an entire thing, and at the same time that Stiles knows he wants it, he isn’t sure if he - the whole thing just feels like a lot and he’s - he’s just never done this before and Derek is so confident like it doesn’t care at him at all and it’s - 

It’s either a lucky or unlucky thing that right after Derek asks him this, Stiles hears the unmistakable sound of his front door opening and closing downstairs. Stiles pulls out of Derek’s neck and faces him head on, so they’re staring at each other. Stiles knows he looks terrified, eyes big in his skull, because his dad isn’t supposed to be home all night. That’s what he said. 

Derek, on the other hand, looks amused. He smiles. 

“Stiles?” The Sheriff’s voice calls from downstairs, and Stiles immediately leaps out of Derek’s lap, does a deep dive towards the floor, lands on his head with a thump. 

“That was a good idea,” Derek says. 

“You up there, kid?” Footsteps start coming toward the stairs, and then there’s heavy footfalls on the steps themselves. “You awake?” 

“Hide!” Stiles hisses at Derek, frantically getting up from the floor on shaking legs, his pants tented, his face beet red. Derek slowly stands from the chair like this isn’t a big deal, as though the fear of god has not been struck in him even while knowing that the man coming up the stairs has a loaded gun on his person. “In the closet! Go!” 

“Christ,” he shakes his head, but moves to do exactly that. He opens up Stiles’ closet door and vanishes behind the clothes, burying himself deep into the back. “I know the drill.”

Stiles can only imagine how many girls’ closets that Derek Hale has hidden in before, how many times he’s had to climb out the window or dive under the bed with an aching hard on. 

Stiles closes the closet door just as the footsteps reach the landing, start heading toward Stiles’ bedroom door. Stiles leaps for the desk chair and tucks himself underneath the desk itself so there’s no chance his dad will see his pants-tent. 

Right as Stiles props his chin into his hand in an attempt at looking casual, the door opens and in his father walks. He looks around the room, blinks, settles on where Stiles is sitting. “Stiles,” he greets, stepping all the way into the room and putting his hands on his utility belt. “What’re you doing up here?” 

“Oh just -“ he fumbles, looks at what he has laid out in front of him on the desk and settles on his textbooks. “...studying. Uh, what are you doing home?” 

“I came to grab some files I left,” from his tone, Stiles can tell his father’s antenna is up. This is what he does for a living; he’s noticed Stiles’ weird posture, noticed that something is off in this room, but can’t put his finger on what. “Kind of a cold night for having the window wide open, don’t you think?” 

Stiles turns, as though he’s surprised to see the window at all - he’s cursing himself for forgetting about it. It’s November for Christ’s sake, what possible reason could there be for having the window wide open?

“Oh, uh - I was hot.” He does not stand up to shut it, because not even this horrifying situation is enough to make his dick go back to sleep. His father stands there and waits, but Stiles never gets up, and the longer the seconds tick by, the more his eyes narrow. 

Slowly, his father moves across the floor in his heavy shoes and closes the window himself. Stiles doesn’t miss the way the man scans the entire scene for cigarette butts or a pipe full of weed or something. There’s nothing, because of course there isn’t, and Stiles clears his throat while his dad does some more assessing of the room. 

Notices another thing. “What’s this?” 

Derek’s jacket, still hanging off the back of Stiles’ chair. “Oh it’s just uh - it’s a letterman jacket.” 

Silence. Then, “it’s Derek Hale’s.” 

A hysterical laugh escapes Stiles’ lips before he can help it. “How would you know what Derek Hale’s varsity letterman jacket looks like?” 

Another silence, and then the Sheriff lifts the jacket up off the chair just enough that Stiles can see the back of it in all its glory. “It says Hale on it.” 

Stiles had not noticed, ever, that the jackets say last names on the back. But there it is - Hale, with a big 88 underneath. Derek’s number. Stiles palms his face, and then he says the only thing he can come up with. “I stole it,” he practically shouts this, and the Sheriff lifts his eyebrows. “I - I took it. I was going to ruin it or something. You know, uh - to mess with him.” 

“That seems out of character, even for your rivalry with Derek Hale,” he says, letting the jacket drop, putting his hands back on his hips. Stiles’ dad, as one could imagine, is strict. He’s a very no nonsense type of a man, and he doesn’t put up with any shenanigans. No matter how much the man might hate the Hales and all they stand for, this just isn’t going to fly. Not under his roof. “You’re going to return this and you’re not going to do anything to it.”

“Uh, yes, yes sir,” he agrees, sitting up straighter. 

He taps his fingers on his belt and looks around the room one more time, like surely there’s something else here that he’s missing, like he knows for a fact that there is but he won't press the issue. “Since when are you this petty?” 

Stiles bites his lip. “I - it was stupid.” 

Sensing that Stiles has been appropriately chastised, he huffs a sigh and gives his son a few pats on the shoulder. “You can’t let people get to you, kid. Give the jacket back, all right?”

“Yeah,” he agrees, clearing his throat. His eyes inadvertently dart to the closet, where Derek is listening to this whole thing and likely trying to not burst into laughter.

“I gotta get back, but I’ll be home first thing in the morning. You’ll be up and ready,” this is not a question - Stiles will be up, showered and dressed by the time his dad gets home. Period. “Love you, kid.”

“Love you,” Stiles parrots, and then the man is gone. The door closed behind him. Stiles is too paranoid to even let out a sigh of relief - he presses his hands over his mouth and listens as his dad goes into his hall office, finds the files he was looking for, clomps down the hall and down the stairs. 

“See you in the morning,” he calls up the stairs, and then the door is closed. Stiles closes his eyes and focuses his hearing to make sure the cruiser door shuts, the engine starts, and the thing is out of the driveway. 

He leaps up as soon as it’s headed down the street and flings the closet door open, to find Derek already parting Stiles’ clothes like Moses parting the Red Sea. He says, “your dad is really not fucking around, huh?” 

“You need to leave,” Stiles tells him firmly. “Like, five minutes ago.” 

“All right,” Derek agrees, grabbing his jacket off of Stiles’ chair. He fits it onto his body and tugs at it until it’s sitting just right on him, and Stiles swallows and looks away - convinces himself it doesn’t get to him. “I’ll see you in school tomorrow.” 

He moves like he’s going out the window again, but Stiles grabs him and pulls him back, agitated. “Can you use the fucking front door like a person, please? Like a human god damn being, for fuck’s sake!” 

Derek laughs and heads toward the bedroom door instead, shrugging. “As you wish,” and then he’s gone. Stiles cannot imagine what the Sheriff would’ve thought if he had walked in and seen Derek Hale in this house at all, let alone with his hands all over his son. 

It’d be one thing for him to discover Stiles was gay. It’d be another thing for him to find out by way of walking in on Stiles getting ravaged by a Hale. The worst of all the Hale kids by popular opinion, at that. 

Derek goes out the front door and probably walks the two blocks back to his house, while Stiles stares at the pros and cons list again. It seems so stupid, now, to try and figure out whether or not he was going to keep doing this with Derek, when the answer has been staring him in the face this entire time. 

Of course he is. He has no choice. Not even the fear of his father finding out, something that used to keep him awake at night, makes him want to stop. 

Stiles wakes up the next morning to find a text from a number he doesn’t recognize with a time stamp past one AM. It says, _just realized I never got to give you another bruise. I’ll have to do that tomorrow_. 

He reads it again and again, imagines Derek lying awake at one in the morning thinking about Stiles. Without thinking about it, he puts the number in his phone as Derek.

**

“Let’s say you had to choose between hot sauces, like, gun to your head,” Scott says on the way to school the next morning, in between munches of a chocolate frosted donut. “If your life depended on choosing a hot sauce, what would you choose?”

“Gun to my head, I guess I’d pick Cholula,” Stiles says, making the sharp right turn into the farthest entrance to campus.

“Obviously,” Scott agrees, nodding emphatically, “Allison keeps saying Tabasco.” 

“Oh, yikes.”

“I _know_.” 

Stiles slows to a stop with a squeak on his brakes, letting a gaggle of football players skirt in front of his Jeep in the crosswalk, laughing and talking. Stiles watches them as they go, Theo Raeken and Isaac Lahey and Jackson Whittemore, and wonders what they say about him when he’s not in ear shot. If Derek ever tells them not to or if he just laughs along with them. None of them like him - Isaac tolerates him and some of them just ignore him, but none of them are friendly towards him at all. 

They likely do not say very kind things about him when he’s not around. No wonder Derek hates him so much. 

Scott finishes the last bite of his donut and says, “hit the gas,” while they’re all still in the middle of the road. 

Stiles snorts a laugh, but doesn’t wind up running them all over. “And kill your best friend Isaac?” 

With a look far too serious for what the conversation would require, Scott narrows his eyes. “You’re my best friend. Isaac is just a cool guy.”

Stiles mimics him with a clown voice, and Scott huffs - the football players remove themselves from the middle of the road, and Stiles presses on the gas. “I think he wants to kill me.”

“He likes you well enough.”

“Which is to say that he doesn’t actively hate me, but he’s not exactly rooting for my success.” 

“Well, Christ,” Scott laughs, as they go sliding into Stiles’ parking space. “He’s on the football team, with your ex-girlfriend’s boyfriend,” he ticks off one finger, “Theo Raeken,” another finger, “and Derek fucking Hale. They don’t exactly sing your praises around him 24/7.” 

Raeken hates Stiles because, well, who fucking knows? The Derek effect is a possibility, but it’s not exactly like Stiles was itching to make a friend out of the guy to begin with. He’s probably the most homophobic individual Stiles has ever had the displeasure of knowing; even before he figured he was gay, that didn’t exactly thrill Stiles. 

“We should all hang out together sometime,” Scott suggests, and Stiles shoots him a look. “Come on. He’d like you more if he knew you, I’m sure of it.” 

Stiles is just opening up his door when Derek tries to come swinging in to his parking spot. He has to slam on the brakes to avoid either taking Stiles’ door clean off or hitting Stiles himself - the car stops inches away from where Stiles is standing, and he lifts his eyebrows at Derek through the windshield. 

A few months ago, Derek would’ve rolled down his window and shouted obscenities at Stiles for even existing. Today, Derek just returns the eyebrows and taps his foot on the gas again and again until Stiles slams his door shut and moves out of the way. 

“Nice to see you two getting along,” Scott chirps as they start walking towards the school. Stiles looks over his shoulder to watch Derek get out of his car and sling his bag over his shoulder - they meet eyes, and Derek shoots him this sarcastic grin, coupled with an over the top wave, like they’re best friends in a teen movie. 

“Getting along isn’t the term I’d use.” It’s not a lie. That certainly isn’t how Stiles would describe their relationship. 

“Not trying to kill each other anymore, let’s say,” he suggests, “hey, maybe since Derek doesn’t hate you that much anymore, Isaac will like you!” 

“Maybe,” Stiles agrees, but only with the second part of that sentence. As for Derek and Stiles not trying to kill each other anymore, Stiles would argue they’ve just changed the ways in which they’ll try, but not the end goal.

**

Derek Hale, 12:54 PM : Should I climb in through your window again to get you to talk to me?

Stiles reads this message in the library after lunch period, and fumbles his phone onto the table with a smack loud enough in the quiet space that everyone’s heads turn towards him. He grimaces apologetically and quickly picks it back up, turning the screen to face him again as though he had hallucinated the text itself. 

But there it is again, the notification set against a picture of him and Scott at the aquarium this past Summer. It’s weird to see Derek’s name pop up on his phone at all, let alone as an indication that Derek Hale is actually trying to communicate with him at this exact second. 

He figures that he has sort of been ignoring Derek all day long – in English class he barely even looked at the other boy, and in lunch they walked right past each other and Stiles had pointedly averted his eyes. Christ, he didn’t think Derek would give half a shit, but here he is, whining about it in text. 

Me, 12:57 PM : Yeah no I’d actually really rather you never came through my window again, thanks. And I’m just trying to be inconspicuous.

Derek’s response is near immediate – Stiles hadn’t even had time to put his phone back down before it’s buzzing with his answer. 

Derek Hale, 12:57 PM : No one is going to automatically assume that Derek Hale and Stiles Stilinski are fucking just because you dare to look in my direction.  
Derek Hale, 12:58 PM : It would be the last thing anyone would think. You’re overacting.   
Me, 1:01 PM: I’m just trying to act normal and I guess I’m finding it a little difficult. What with how not normal this entire fiasco is.   
Derek Hale, 1:03 PM : Well if you won’t let me come to you why don’t you come to my house. 

Stiles stares at that text for a long time – minutes on end, with his chin in his palm. If Derek wants Stiles to go to his house, to be alone with him in his bedroom most likely, then there’s only one reason for that. Like many girls before him, Stiles has just become aware that Derek wants to have sex. With him, specifically. 

Stiles palms his face and sucks in a deep breath. It’s not that he doesn’t want to, it’s just that if and when he does have sex with Derek, it will make the entire thing more…solid. Like they’re not just going to make out a few more times and then throw in the towel, wake up from their shared hallucination and act like it never happened to begin with. Stiles knows for certain that if they have sex they’ll be opening up a box that’s not going to close on its own. They’ll be linking each other in an irrevocable way, not to even mention Stiles’ nerves at the mere thought of the act itself.

He wouldn’t even know what to do. Yes, he and Lydia had sex a few times, but seeing as how the terribleness of it was the entire reason for the demise of their relationship, Stiles feels more like that experience has done more to hurt him than help him. 

Derek Hale, 1:12 PM : I’ll let you come in through the front door instead of through the window, even.  
Me, 1:14 PM : Won’t your family be there?   
Derek Hale, 1:15 PM : Not on Friday. 

Stiles is starting to lose track of how they got from point A to point B, where point A is Derek actively trying to shove his head through a concrete wall and point B is Derek practically begging Stiles to come over so they can fuck. He remembers individual plot points, like when Derek got drunk and kissed him at Lydia Martin’s house, or when Derek kissed him at the pep rally, or Erica crying at the homecoming dance or the way Derek had looked at him when he saw Stiles and Seth kissing – but he cannot, for the life of him, figure out how he got to this moment, right here and right now. 

Me, 1:17 PM : I will consider it.   
Derek Hale, 1:18 PM : Oh, fuck off, we both know you’ll come.   
Derek Hale, 1:18 PM : You can’t help it just like I can’t, so yes you will come.   
Derek Hale, 1:19 PM : And I meant that double entendre.

Stiles puts his phone down, face down so if Derek texts again he can ignore it, and stares blankly off into space. Oh, yikes.

**

On Thursday night, Stiles is working his usual shift at the store – it’s around five o’clock at night, which is traditionally one of the busiest times of day for him. Lots of people coming to get stuff for dinner, or getting off work and making a quick trip for one or two things, the odd person stocking up for a week. He sees so many of the same faces on a night like this that it all starts to blur into one, so when he sees something or someone that he doesn’t normally see, it catches his attention.

Tonight, that something or someone is Derek Hale. With the sheer amount of effort that Derek Hale has been putting into seeing Stiles these days, it really shouldn’t surprise Stiles in the least bit to see him lazing his way into the store with one of his sisters in tow, hands shoved into his pockets, chewing gum and seeming put out about the fact that he exists at all. Stiles grits his teeth and sighs through his nose when he spots them. 

He had taken it for granted, those glorious years that Derek avoided this place like the plague just because Stiles worked here. Now that Derek is hellbent on terrorizing Stiles, he figures he’ll be seeing him here a lot more.

It’s only fifteen minutes until Derek materializes in Stiles’ checkout line, like the ghost of Christmas past, his sister seeming oblivious beside him. Stiles doesn’t see a whole ton of Derek’s sisters because they go to a different school across town, one that Derek isn’t smart enough to be at most likely, so he isn’t positive but he thinks it’s the younger one. She seems younger, so she must be. She does not look at Stiles like he’s the scum of the earth or like she even totally knows who he is, as the two of them move forward to be right in front of him, all their items lined up on the belt and waiting to be scanned. 

Stiles stares at Derek, who pops his gum in return and lifts a single eyebrow. “Is this everything for you?” Stiles asks, and Derek lets a slow smile creep across his face. 

“Yeah,” the sister says, as Stiles surveys their purchases – two frozen pizzas, pasta and sauce, frozen meatballs, a fuckton of soda, even more packages of gummy worms. 

“Our mother is going out of town,” Derek supplies at Stiles’ obvious judgment of what they’re buying. “Anything goes.” Before Stiles can even formulate a response to that, Derek turns to his sister and says, “Cora, you remember Stilinski.” 

The sister, Cora, double takes him, as though he’s sprouted eight heads since the last time they were in the same room together. “Shit, really?” She cocks her head to the side and squints, while Stiles starts scanning and scanning away. “I don’t see any horns growing out of his forehead.” 

“Ha ha,” Stiles intones, bagging all the soda and moving onto the gummy worms. “Did you two come all the way here just to torment me?” 

“Why not?” Derek pops his gum again. 

Stiles scans the pasta, maintaining eye contact with him. “You don’t normally come here.”

A slow, slow shrug. “It’s the closest store to our house. We come here.”

“Really? I’ve worked here for two years and I’ve not once seen you actually come in and buy anything,” he drops the meatballs into a bag with a thump, and Cora is looking between the two of them like she’s at a Wimbledon match, her eyes assessing like she’s trying to make sense of this exchange. 

She senses tension, sure, but whether she’s gathered that it’s sexual or not is anyone’s guess. Right now, Stiles wants to shove Derek back into the chips and gum display and then climb on top of him, and he’s sure that Derek is thinking something along the same wavelength. She would never, ever be able to guess that. 

“You probably just haven’t been paying attention.” 

“Hmm,” he wants to reach out and smack the gum out of Derek’s mouth, if he pops that shit at him one more fucking time… “your total is $60.75.”

Derek pulls his wallet out and then Stiles is forced to stand there and watch as Derek sifts through fifties and twenties and hundreds, pulling one of the latter out and handing it to him. He wonders if their mother just showers them in money, or something – there’s no logical reason for an eighteen year old boy to be walking around with hundreds of dollars cash on his person, but there he is. 

Stiles takes the hundred like he’s mad about it, quickly making change while the Hales stare at him; Cora’s stare calculating like she’s trying to solve a math problem, Derek’s heated like any second he’s going to join Stiles in the tight space between the register and the belt. 

He puts the change and the receipt in Derek’s hand. “Have a nice night,” he says, fake smile on his face. 

Derek looks at him like he cannot wait, not for one solitary single second, until he can wipe that smile clean off of Stiles’ face.

**

At the end of the school day on Friday, Derek’s car is already gone from the lot, like it had never been there at all. Of course he had been, because Stiles saw him in the halls, and lunch, and English class. In lunch he had even seen Derek and Erica nearly bump into each other, both of them changing trajectories to avoid the other quickly.

Stiles drives Scott home, and Scott is talking to him about something or other, and it all sounds like white noise in Stiles’ ears. Like everything is muted because all he can think of is what’s going to happen tonight, where he’s going, how he’s had to lie to his father and make up another friend because he certainly couldn’t say he was going to Derek Hale’s house. Over his father’s dead body. 

When they slow to a stop outside of Scott’s house, right before Scott is about to hop out and say he’ll see Stiles after work tomorrow for their usual Saturday night video game session, Stiles grabs Scott by the shoulder and clears his throat. 

“Hey, uh,” he starts, swallowing a lump in his throat. “If I told you that Derek and I were becoming, uh, friendly,” at the word friendly Scott’s eyebrows go up, like the word is ridiculous, “what would you uh…”

“Friendly?” He repeats with a laugh. “Like you’re hanging out?” 

“No,” Stiles says lightning quick, a lie, and a bad one. Luckily for them both, Scott is not smart enough to pick up on it. “Like…if we talked.” 

“Uh, I mean,” he shrugs, “I guess whatever? It’s better than the alternative.” He pauses, thinks for a moment. “I mean, if you told me you were becoming really good friends with him I’d be concerned.” 

“Concerned because…” 

“Do you really even have to ask me that question?” Scott looks at him like he cannot believe these words are coming out of Stiles’ mouth. “You, of all people?” 

“Well, I –“

“That guy is the fucking worst. I didn’t usually go off about this before because I didn’t want to incite another physical fight between you two, but…I mean really,” he says this with a laugh, like it’s a no brainer. “He’s – arrogant and mean and an alcoholic and just…a shitty person.”

Stiles thinks of that piece of paper, stuffed somewhere deep in his desk, where he had written the same exact thing about Derek. But then, had scribbled it out. Does that mean it’s not true, or that Stiles just doesn’t want to see it, after everything that’s happened? 

“You would never be his friend,” he pats Stiles on his shoulder with a lopsided grin, “it’s just not possible.” 

Out he goes, practically skipping up to his front door to get ready to go to work – Stiles grips the steering wheel and sucks in a deep breath. It would be very easy for him to just go straight to his own house from here, to block Derek’s number and forget the whole thing, to ignore him at school, to go on with his life as though he’d never kissed Seth and as though he still pretended to like girls. That would be the easy thing. 

He gets to the stop sign and the intersection where he has to choose between his house and Derek’s, and listens to his engine growl at him as it idles. Maybe he shouldn’t do this, he thinks. And then shortly after, maybe he doesn’t actually have a choice. 

With a shaky breath he makes a left instead of a right, heading off toward the nicer neighborhood instead of to the mid-range one that he lives in. He bumbles along the familiar road, until he sees the long drive way that leads up to the Hale estate – he’s never, not once, made this turn before in spite of all the times he has driven by. 

Today, he does, his Jeep crawling up the hill to get to the main driveway. As he gets closer he sees Derek’s car tucked inside of a garage, but the other slots are empty. No one else home, all of them scattered off leaving Derek to his own devices, alone in this big house. 

He parks in the driveway, right next to the big cherry tree, and climbs out of his Jeep. He has never once been this close to the house before, and standing right next to it like this, it seems even bigger. It’s a mansion. With his hands in his pockets, he walks up the little path lined with pretty flowers and little boulders, up until the welcome mat. It says _wipe your paws_ and Stiles snorts. To his knowledge, Derek doesn’t even have any pets. 

He rings the doorbell, which gongs so loud it reverbs almost, and then stands there waiting. Thinks about making a break for it, running back to his car and driving off, leaving nothing but a couple of tire marks on the driveway. 

Before he gets the chance, Derek pulls open the door and looks right at him. “If that thing leaks oil onto the driveway, I’ll be in big trouble.” 

“It’s not a complete hunk of shit, you know,” Stiles spits back.

“Could’ve fooled me,” and then he stares at Stiles some more. Says, “are you going to come in, or just stand there all night?” 

Stiles thinks standing here on the wipe your paws welcome mat is much preferable to what lies in store for him behind Derek’s front door, but all the same, he steps inside. Derek closes the door behind them, and then Stiles is looking around himself. The floors are marble, and there’s a grand staircase in the foyer leading up to who knows how many rooms – the only ones that Stiles can see from here is a hallway leading down to what has to be a kitchen and a living room. 

“Take your shoes off, my mom is psychotic about that,” he points to a neat and tidy set of shoe racks lined up right next to the front door, and Stiles figures Derek is not kidding. There are tons of shoes here – some Stiles recognizes from Derek’s own feet, the rest all feminine in nature. There’s an entire separate rack labeled ‘guests’, so when Stiles unties his shoes and slips them off, he figures that’s where he should set them. 

Stiles has shamrock socks on, and for some reason this feels really embarrassing to him at the moment, like any second Derek is going to laugh at him and say something shitty. Derek sees them, of course he does, but he doesn’t make a comment. “Your house is huge,” he says, just for something to say, and Derek does not seem impressed. 

“It’s a museum,” there’s an edge to his voice as he says this, and then without another word he cocks his head towards the stairs to indicate that’s where they’re going. Stiles just follows along behind him, up the steps lined with very serious pictures of the Hale children. There’s Cora closest to the bottom of the steps, and after that the other girl whose name Stiles can’t remember, both of them looking very severe in their pictures, like the photographer instructed them to think about their dead father or something. 

Then, there’s Derek at the landing leading to the second floor. Stiles doesn’t have time to stop and really look at it, but from the glimpse he gets of it, he sees dead eyes and a frown, like the photographer didn’t have to tell him anything. He just…is that way. 

Stiles sees very little of the second floor – just rugs and chandeliers and many, many doors. All of them shut up tight, empty and dark. Derek leads him up the next set of stairs, where the worst picture of them all waits. It’s big, blown up, eerie in its sheer size. Stiles hasn’t seen Derek’s father in years, of course, because the man died sometime around Derek’s freshman year, but he recognizes him instantly. 

Derek doesn’t even look at it as he goes, like he’s seen it so many times it hardly bothers him. Stiles thinks that he understood what Derek had said downstairs in the foyer, about this house being a museum. Everything is clean, dusted, fresh, like a team of maids comes through every single day and makes sure it’s all pristine and if anyone were to come in and try to make it not that way, they’d be in big trouble. There are pictures and portraits and paintings all over the walls, the rugs and carpets seeming vintage and perfect, like nothing has ever been spilled on them – as though three children weren’t raised here. 

They get to the third floor, which is smaller than the rest. Just a short hallway, two doors, but done up the same as the rest. Rugs and bright golden lights, pictures and paintings on the walls. There’s one of the entire family, right across from the door Derek opens. Stiles gets a brief look at it before he follows Derek into the room, and he notices that Derek doesn’t look any happier in pictures where his father is alive. 

Walking into Derek’s bedroom is like stepping into another universe entirely, when it’s compared to the rest of the house. The walls are dark blue and he’s got hardwood floors, that Stiles can tell from what little of the floor he can actually see underneath miles of clothes and books and notebooks and various other miscellany. There’s a bookshelf that doesn’t have very many books in it, mostly littered with trinkets and old school papers, a couple pictures of the many football teams Derek’s been on since he was a kid. 

There are posters on the walls, a couple football players Stiles doesn’t recognize, but for the most part the walls are bare, a stark contrast to the chaos everywhere else in the room. On his desk there are a couple orange pill bottles among the papers and pictures, but Stiles quickly averts his eyes as he follows Derek the rest of the way into the room. 

“You want a beer?” Derek asks immediately, and Stiles blinks at him because where the hell is he going to produce a beer from, all the way on the top floor of the house, far from where the kitchen is? 

As if in answer to Stiles’ question, Derek pushes some clothes off of what Stiles had assumed to be a hamper of some kind, but turns out to be a mini fridge. He bends down and opens it up, revealing six packs, white claws, and a couple bottles of the hard stuff. Stiles rubs at his neck and feels uncomfortable seeing it. “Ah – no thanks.” He turns around and sees Derek’s bed. It’s got black sheets. He changes his mind. “I’ll take one of the white claws.” 

Derek smiles, like Stiles has just said something funny. “You know, I only keep those around for if girls come over.” All the same, he pulls a mango out and tosses it to Stiles, who catches it and makes a face. 

“Fuck off. As if spiked seltzer is somehow gendered.” 

For his part, Derek pulls a PBR out and pops it open, taking a long sip. 

“I take it your mother doesn’t know you have a mini fridge full of booze in your bedroom,” Stiles takes a seat in Derek’s desk chair, having to push a few old shirts out of the way so he can sit. 

“What she doesn’t know about my life I could write a book on,” he winks, like they’re in on some little secret together. Which, of course, they are, but not about this. “Enough about my sob story – I’m surprised you even have the balls to drink considering your dad.” 

“I don’t drink the same way you do,” he says quickly, and then sort of wants to take it back. The whole _he’s an alcoholic_ thing is starting to feel less funny or cutting and more…well. Real. “I mean – I don’t usually get very drunk.” 

Derek leans against his wall and looks Stiles up and down with this incredulous look, like he can’t believe he’s got Stiles Stilinski up in his bedroom, or like he can’t believe that Stiles Stilinski exists at all. “You are such a good kid,” he says this as though it’s not something to be proud of. “It must be so boring, to be you.” 

“I suppose your life is endless fun.” Stiles’ voice has no inflection when he says this. “Parties and girls and football.” 

“Oh, I have fun.” 

Stiles had looked at the pill bottles, after all. Someone has put him on antidepressants, but judging from the fill date and the number of pills left in the bottles, Stiles guesses Derek doesn’t take them. At all. Maybe he just dumps them down the drain or flushes them down the toilet once it’s time to refill them, so no one will ask him any questions. 

Derek drinks his beer and Stiles drinks his white claw. He very suddenly doesn’t feel like trading barbs with him anymore, or at all, or ever. Stiles has seen the house and the pill bottles and the bedroom and he thinks he’s seen enough. 

“I was going to say it’s what I like about you, you know, but you had to be shitty,” Derek says, and Stiles looks down at his feet. His stupid fucking shamrock socks. 

“I thought you didn’t like anything about me,” Stiles’ voice sounds small in his own ears as he speaks, and it’s unreal that he could find it in him to be vulnerable in front of Derek Hale, of all people. 

It becomes apparent that Derek might not be drunk, but he’s not totally sober, and that is not his first beer. It’s been a while since the last time Stiles has been in a situation with Derek where alcohol was available, but here they are. So, Derek laughs, and gestures around themselves like what he’s about to say is just so obvious. “Stiles, obviously there are things I like about you. You’re here aren’t you?” 

“I thought you just wanted to hate-fuck me, honestly.” 

Derek laughs, a big belly laugh, not one of his bitter or fake ones. A genuine, real laugh. “I mean, sure, yeah. I can hate-fuck you and still like a couple of things about you.” 

This line of conversation can only really lead one place, and the thought of that one place with all of Derek’s black sheets and his pillows and the smell of him puts the fear of god in him, so he quickly changes trajectories until they wind up just staring at each other thinking about it some more. “Do you ever get lonely all the way on the top floor with no one else around?”

There’s a pause, as Derek takes a long sip of his beer – he meets Stiles’ eyes and doesn’t say anything. Not for several seconds. Then, “do you ever get lonely when you think about how there’s something about you no one can know?” 

He doesn’t say it the way he might’ve said it a few months ago; he does not say it like it’s a gotcha or like he’s only saying it to hurt Stiles’ feelings. It’s a genuine question, and Stiles rubs the back of his neck and feels uncomfortable again. Derek has never really looked at him like that before, so serious but so…something else, Stiles doesn’t have a word for. 

When Stiles doesn’t say anything, Derek finishes his beer and tosses the empty can into his waste basket. He bends down and gets another one instantly, without stopping to think about it, and Stiles watches him while biting his lip. “Maybe you and I are more alike than we’ve realized,” Derek says, and Stiles can’t help but laugh.

“It’s hard to relate to you when we’re sitting in this house,” he gestures around himself, even though Derek’s pit of a bedroom isn’t a very good indicator of the rest of the house. “You’ve got maids and three floors and a five car garage, it’s hard to…you know.” 

“Right,” Derek looks at him. Hard. “My poor little rich boy routine as you’ve said before.”

Stiles scratches at his cheek and looks away. “Well.” 

The air is tense and Stiles thinks, very seriously, about making a run for it here and now. Running in his shamrock socks down all the steps to the ground floor, sliding his shoes on his feet, and getting the hell out of here. It’s beginning to feel, in this museum of a house with Derek Hale, like an episode of the Twilight Zone. 

Derek puts his beer down and waves his hands, as though scrubbing away everything he had just said. “I’m making you uncomfortable,” he assesses, more astute than he usually is. “I just guess we’ve never really known each other before, I think that’s what I meant.” 

“That’s true,” Stiles agrees after clearing his throat, fiddling with the pop-top on his white claw. “I don’t really know how to talk to you.” A pause, wherein Stiles takes a big sip of his drink and then sets it down. “Just for the sake of my nerves, did you really invite me over here to have sex with me?” 

“Well, you know what they say,” he kind of wags his finger in the air like it’s funny, and his face says that he thinks it’s funny too, “nobody ever sees Derek Hale’s bedroom without getting banged into the headboard of my bed.” 

“Oh, yikes,” Stiles makes a face. “They say that?” 

“I think that being my enemy has afforded you a bit of a Derek filter,” he says, turning to look out the one window he has in this cave of a room – it’s so dark in here, if the overhead light wasn’t on they’d practically not be able to see each other all the way. “They say all kinds of shit about me, Stilinski. My conquests, my alcohol problem, my inability to keep a girlfriend, my grades, the CTE.”

“The CTE?” Stiles repeats, aghast. He’s never once heard someone make a CTE joke at Derek’s expense. 

“Oh, yeah. I’m the Aaron Hernandez of Beacon Hills,” he’s smiling, but he doesn’t find it very funny. Stiles can tell. 

He really must have had a Derek filter – because he’s heard a lot about Derek, yes, but never anything that bad. Just the usual, you know. He’s a womanizer and he drinks too much and he’s an asshole, none of which are the worst things a person could do or be. Stiles thinks of that piece of paper again, where he’d written that Derek was a shitty person, and he looks at Derek standing there drinking in his cavernous empty house where he’s not allowed to touch anything and his antidepressants and the dark walls. 

Other people really think that. That he’s some villainous person, ghoulish and shitty and awful. And to be fair, Stiles spent so much of his life feeling that way, too. Now he feels like maybe he’s the one who’s been shitty. 

“But I mean is it true that no one ever steps foot in here without, you know,” Stiles changes back to the original topic at hand, because it’s more lightheaded than the other paths they could take. 

Derek is amused again, genuinely this time. “In the strictest sense, I guess so. Why would I have anyone up to my bedroom otherwise?” 

He’s giving Stiles that look again, the pointed one that he saw in the bathroom in C Hall, and in Stiles’ bedroom and in the janitor’s closet. Stiles clears his throat. “How many have there actually been?” 

Surely less than people have said. Of course less than that. 

Derek puts his beer down again and gestures for Stiles to stand up, so Stiles does. Derek bends down and reaches around under his bed, so Stiles half expects him to pull a stack of Playboys out from the darkness as he comes up beside him. 

Instead, Derek produces a Beacon Hills High School yearbook - the one from last year, when Derek was a Junior and Stiles was a Sophomore. Stiles has the same one, of course, somewhere in the depths of his bedroom closet. Maybe Derek even saw it while he was holed up in there the other night. 

Derek sits down on the edge of the bed, so Stiles follows suit and clasps his hands together so Derek won’t be able to see that they might be shaking, from nerves. He opens up the yearbook to the cover, where there are so many signatures it’s almost mind boggling to think of a person having that many friends or people that care enough to write anything at all, and as he does he says, “I’ve kept track.”

“Is this like a notch in your bedpost type of a thing,” Stiles asks, leaning over to get a better look as Derek flips through the pages. 

“Kind of. It’s sort of in bad taste,” he gives Stiles a sheepish look, like this is embarrassing – like Stiles isn’t one of Derek’s shitty air headed football friends who will laugh and give him high fives, but rather is someone who would, yes, find this to be in poor taste. 

“It sure is. Yet I still wanna know.” 

Derek smirks at him, and flips over another page to show that there are a few pictures, here, of Sophomore girls who have been circled. Stiles stares and almost cannot believe what he’s seeing. He recognizes these girls, of course he does; one from his art class last year, another from gym, and another he’s only seen in passing. “This reminds me of a serial killer’s journals.” 

Derek guffaws, turning the page again, where two more girls are circled. Stiles sucks in a breath at the next page, where three more girls are, then the next page, then the next. “I think I get the idea,” he says hastily – because yes, some of these girls he knew Derek had slept with because people talked about it afterward, but the vast majority of them? He never had a clue. He had thought Derek’s conquests were somewhere in the teens. 

It seems to be closer to the thirties. Stiles doesn’t know what to make of that. His mind whirs with the images of what probably happened with all these girls here in this exact bed, whirs with the question of whether or not Derek would circle Stiles’ picture or if he’d rather not have anyone know. 

Then, when Stiles has more than had enough of this, Derek turns the page and a particular image leers out at him above the rest, circled in bright red sharpie. Stiles slaps his hand down on the page to get Derek to stop from turning it away, and gapes. 

“Derek Hale,” he says, his voice strained as those eyes of Mordor stare out at him in eerie black and white. “You slept with Lydia Martin?” 

There’s a silence; Derek pushes Stiles’ hand off of the yearbook and closes it with a thwap, blinking several times in tandem. “You know, ever since this all started I’ve kind of assumed that was all a bearding thing,” his voice is very even. 

Stiles closes his eyes and presses his palms against the lids, feels like screaming for some reason. “We had a relationship.” 

“I mean, you’re gay.” 

“That is TBD.”

“What?” 

“To be _determined_ , you asshole.” 

Derek laughs, because he always laughs at shit like this even though Stiles feels like going apeshit right here and right now. “It was after you guys broke up, if that’s any –“

“Oho, I’m sure it fucking was,” he snaps, finally pulling his hands off of his face so he can look right into Derek’s eyes; he’s amused. “She slept with you just to get back at me, I just know it. I’m sure of it, that’s how she operates. She just used you to get to me, I know it.”

This information does not perturb Derek, not in the least, as he slides the yearbook back underneath his bed and then sits back up, reaching for his beer. All of this is rolling off of his back like so much water, like it’s nothing to him. 

“You know what she says about you? She says you’re an oaf,” he puts this on one finger, “a dolt,” a second finger, “for Christ’s sake, she’s the ring leader behind the campaign to prove you are, in fact, an actual alcoholic!” 

Derek looks at him. “It was just sex,” and Stiles closes his mouth, looks away to stare off into space for a moment. “I get the sense this has upset you. You’re mad at me.” 

“Not at you,” he snaps. “I wouldn’t have ever expected you to not sleep with my ex-girlfriend and I even more wouldn’t have expected you to call me up to gab about it afterwards. Oh, no. I’m mad at someone, but it is not you.” 

Derek clicks his tongue and sort of just sits there for a moment. “I dunno what to say,” he admits, that brutal honesty shining through again. “Would it satisfy you to know she wasn’t even in the top ten?”

“You _rank_ them?” Stiles practically screams this, and Derek’s face goes crazy, like this is one of the funniest things that’s ever happened in this room. 

“I told you it was in poor taste.” 

There’s another pause. Stiles’ jaw working as he grinds his teeth and Derek sips his beer, not a care in the world. “It does satisfy me,” he admits. “Did she, you know, say anything about me? At the time?” 

Derek gets this far away look in his eyes, like he honestly cannot remember. Christ it wouldn’t have even been that long ago, and here he is, acting like it was years and years ago. “Uhh…” And that’s all the answer Stiles really needs. No, Lydia did not mention him. It was revenge sex, plain and simple, and it was so shameful to her she never even actually used it to get revenge. She hates Derek even more than Stiles ever did, and she fucked him just to get to Stiles. “The ranking is in poor taste. I shouldn’t do that.” 

“I mean, holy shit, yeah, that’s…” Stiles waves his hands a bit, unable to find the exact word he wants to use. He settles on, “it’s a yikes. I could expose you for it.”

Derek drums his fingers on his can of beer, and Stiles works to push thoughts of Lydia out of his head. Now that he’s getting used to the information, he can honestly say it’s not that surprising. Lydia acts without thinking, impulsive to a fault. More likely than not this tryst she had with Derek is her deepest shame, a secret she’ll take with her to the grave. “I’ve been tested before,” Derek says out of the clear blue sky, shrugging it off. Stiles turns to him and assesses him – the way he won’t make direct eye contact with Stiles, the anxious drumming of his fingers on his beer. “For STI’s. I don’t have any. If you were, you know. Concerned.” 

Stiles says, “so you did bring me here to have hate-sex with me.” 

Derek shrugs. “No one comes to Derek Hale’s bedroom without getting banged against his headboard,” he repeats, like he’s saying duh, and Stiles purses his lips and drinks his drink some more. It’s not helping him relax, like he had hoped it would. He feels nervous, like he’s about to make a presentation at the front of the classroom or something, but it’s…different, from the kind of nervous he was with Lydia. 

With Lydia, the first time, he honestly thought he was going to puke, which in hindsight makes a lot more sense. He practically had to force himself to go through with it, the memories still a bit of a sore spot. 

“If you don’t want to, it’s fine,” he says, and then a second time, more forcefully. “It’s fine. Plenty of girls have actually come to Derek Hale’s bedroom and not gotten banged into the headboard.” 

“I wish you’d stop saying that,” Stiles says around a nervous laugh, rubbing his sweaty hands on his jeans. 

“I just mean, girls have come up here and gotten nervous. I’m not that much of a piece of shit,” he huffs, like he has had to say that many, many times before. “We don’t have to do anything.” 

“You keep saying girls,” Stiles finishes his white claw and aims for the waste basket, misses by a good foot, but Derek doesn’t seem to notice or care. He looks only at Stiles, his eyes searching his face, every last inch of it, like there’s an answer written in the freckles somewhere. “You keep saying…girls.” 

“I’ve only ever had girls in my bedroom before,” he says, very matter-of-fact. 

“Except now you have Stiles Stilinski in your bedroom. You know,” Stiles notices how close they’re sitting to each other, likely the closest they’ve ever sat next to one another in…ever, “The one you tried to drown at the city pool a couple summers ago.” 

“Sure, why not?” Derek shrugs, his nonchalance maddening at the same time it helps Stiles to calm down, “it’s just sex.” 

Stiles bites his lip and thinks about it. The act itself. Letting Derek do that to him, because of course it’s going to be that way, both of them know that without even having to bring it up. He imagines it, and his skin gets hot and his breaths go shallow because it does turn him on, of course it does, he very well might be gay, so of course, gay sex turns him on. Of course with Derek it would in spite of their history, because he’s…hot. Like the burning of the sun hot. 

Stiles has never thought that before. That Derek is hot. Of course it’s true, it’s just…he’s never really lingered on it until they started doing whatever this is. 

“Do you think you like boys?” Stiles blurts before he can help himself, and Derek blinks at him. “I mean as a general, do you think…or is it just…?”

Derek finishes the sentence for him. “Or is it just you.” 

“I mean do you think it’s all about hate-fucking like, you hate me so much you wanna fuck me or – or do you think you actually like boys or is it not a hate-fucking thing and you just – just –“ Stiles babbles, and he’s sure none of it makes any sense, his hands sweating, his heartbeat picking up, because Derek is looking right at him and they’re in his bedroom alone in a big house. 

Derek is honest, as is his character. “I don’t think of it like that. The only thing I know is I want to fuck you,” the words send a chill up Stiles’ spine. “I want to hold you down and fuck you.” 

“I –“ Stiles wishes he had something to do with his hands. He can’t think of anything to say to that. 

“Maybe it is a hate-fuck thing. Maybe we’ve always been attracted to each other and just never known. Maybe none of it really matters,” he waves his hand. “It’s a label. It’s boring.” 

Boring. Oh, Stiles wishes he could be like Derek – to think that the label of his sexuality and the label on what it is they’re doing with each other could just be like, whatever, man. To have it not matter. 

The problem is that it does matter, to some extent, because Derek will only touch him behind closed doors where no one can see them. Maybe that’s not a thought Stiles wants to linger on, right now, because it feels irrelevant. 

“I want to,” he decides aloud, and then looks away quickly, his face on fire. “I want you to…yeah.” 

Derek leans back on his palms, looking Stiles up and down. “For someone who’s such a smartass, you sure have a hard time talking about this sort of stuff.” 

“Derek Hale, please don’t make fun of me right now,” he hisses, and Derek snaps his mouth shut and sits up straight. “I’m so nervous because I’ve never done this before and because I’ve thought about it for so long, and I know you could give a fuck, but –“

“Okay,” Derek says, hasty. Likely because he’s watching his opportunity to fuck someone up the ass slip through his fingers. “I give a fuck. I apologize. I was trying to lighten the mood.” 

The mood, Stiles thinks, is so fucking heavy they could reach out and feel it running along their fingers, tangible in the air around them. It’s not going to get any lighter any time soon. “Okay,” Stiles says, and then he bites his lip and pulls his shirt up and over his head, tossing it off to the side. 

Derek seems to now be following Stiles’ lead, examining him and moving slowly, cautiously, like any second Stiles is going to freak and make a run for it. He pulls his own shirt up and over, throwing it on the ground. Stiles looks at it piled up down there, right next to Stiles’, and then looks at Derek.

The kid is ripped. Like, of course he had to be and of course Stiles could tell all the times they fought, but actually seeing it? He must have been holding back in the all the fights. That’s the only explanation. He’s an eighteen year old with a fucking six pack, for Christ’s sake. His arms are the size of Stiles’ thighs, practically. This is too much. 

“You have a tattoo?” Stiles blurts, because yes, Derek certainly does. It’s on his abdomen running along his ribs, one of the most painful places to get a tattoo, so Stiles has heard – and it’s big. It had to have taken at least two sessions, hours long. 

Derek looks down at it like he had forgotten it was even there. It’s a ship. A huge ship. With masts and sails and the whole nine yards, a wave down at the bottom for good measure. 

“What does it mean?” Stiles asks, and Derek shrugs.

“I dunno,” he says. “I saw it and I liked it.” 

Like with most things Derek has, he simply saw it and he liked it and now he has it. Simple as that. The idea to get a tattoo at all was a lark he had, one day. He just walked right in and got it done, no second thoughts. Stiles’ hand twitches with the desire to reach out and touch it, but he’s too nervous and he doesn’t want Derek to think he’s weird or anything. 

It’s as though Derek reads Stiles’ mind, though, because he takes Stiles’ hand by the wrist, pulling it over so that the fingers rest on the ink. Stiles averts his eyes, but then he gets brave and looks right up into Derek’s face. He touches the sails of the ship and Derek’s skin is so warm and tight, because he’s so fucking hot and fit it should be illegal, actually, and he licks his lips. “I’m nervous,” he admits, “but I really want you to hate-fuck me.” 

Whatever quiet, nervous thing had been there before disappears the second Stiles says that. Derek grabs him, manhandles him like he always does, and drags him onto the bed, all the way. He uses his hands to take Stiles by the waist and heft him, like he weighs as much as a sack of potatoes, to the center of the bed, lying on his back. 

Derek climbs on top of him, straddling Stiles so his knees bracket him in, so Stiles is trapped there, likely just the way Derek wants him to be. Derek puts his hands on Stiles’, chest, runs them up and down like he’s fixated by it, the same way Stiles had been by Derek’s ship. He uses two fingers to tweak one of Stiles’ nipples and Stiles jerks in surprise – that was not something he had known could feel good, before. 

Derek likes that response. He does it again, a smirk on his face, while Stiles reaches his hand out and grabs Derek’s wrist – not to stop him, just to put it there. They share eye contact, feeling each other’s bodies against their skin. “I am going to fuck you stupid, Stilinski.” 

Before Stiles has a chance to even think of a response to that, Derek hefts himself up on his knees so he can flip Stiles over onto his stomach. Until he uses his arms to pull Stiles up onto his own knees, moving Stiles this way and that like it’s nothing to him to do so. 

He definitely held back in some of the fights. Being tossed around like a rag doll in his bed is making that crystal fucking clear – Stiles can’t think of what it might mean that Derek held back, that it may be as simple as Derek wanting a fair fight, or that maybe Derek is just not actually Aaron Hernandez and didn’t want to do any serious damage to the smaller boy. 

Big hands undo Stiles’ belt, his button, his zipper, and then he tugs. Stiles feel the air hit his bare skin and bears down a bit, hiding his face in his arms because this is embarrassing. Even though he’s in this, all in this, couldn’t turn back for anything, he still feels small and silly. And this is Derek fucking Hale. 

Derek tugs Stiles’ jeans and boxers off, down his thighs and then his calves and then he’s picking up Stiles’ legs to slip them off and over his ankles and feet. “Is that okay?” 

“Yeah,” Stiles says, muffled into the crook of his arm. 

Apparently, Stiles hiding his face isn’t going to do for Derek. He takes Stiles by the neck and uses the scruff to bare his face to the room at large, and most importantly, Derek’s prying eyes. He says, “I wanna see your face,” in this like, crazy gruff sex-crazed voice that goes right to Stiles’ dick, right to the center of him. 

Derek uses both hands and smooths them up and down Stiles’ back, again and again, like he’s trying to calm him down. It works. Stiles lowers his head for a moment and breathes in, breathes out, the hands on his back calming and tickling and soothing, so he closes his eyes and just…is. Here, in this moment. 

It’s abrupt when Derek wraps his full hand around Stiles’ dick and strokes, so abrupt that Stiles can’t control the noise that spills out of his throat. It’s this crazy sound he doesn’t think he’s ever made before, because sex with Lydia was forced and bad and masturbating is quiet, so when he does it, it’s mortifying to hear it in his own ears. 

“I told you I could get you to make better sounds,” Derek says, and he strokes again, so Stiles makes that sound, moving to bury his face again. Derek pulls it back up, with an ah-ah-ah sound, like he’s chastising him. “Your face right now, holy shit.” 

Stiles digs his fingers into the sheets and breathes through his nose, feeling crazy. He wonders if Derek feels as crazy as him, if this is getting to him like it is to Stiles. 

Derek strokes him a couple more times, until he pulls away and starts frantically tugging his own jeans off. Stiles listens to the rustle of clothing, the tinkle of his belt getting undone, and then he turns around and looks right as Derek is pulling his own dick out into the open. Stiles stares at it, and Derek catches him looking. 

“Uh,” Stiles says at the sight of it, and Derek sort of smirks and gestures to himself, up and down, like _did you expect anything else_?

It’s…big. Not in a comical way, and not in a freak show porn type of a way. It’s just…big. An average amount of big. It’s thick. Stiles cannot imagine that going inside of him, not even a little, and he feels like this panic shows on his face, because Derek starts stroking his back again, kneeing closer to him so that his dick bumps into Stiles’ body. “I’ll be gentle,” he promises, and Stiles knows he won’t be. 

“You said you were going to fuck me stupid,” he reminds him, and Derek laughs. 

“I’ll use lots of lube,” he corrects, and Stiles breathes through his nose again. Right. Lube is something that exists, and this is Derek Hale’s bedroom, so of course there’s some readily available. 

Derek reaches over and moves one of the four pillows he has pushes up against his headboard, where hidden away between the mattress and the wall there’s a box of condoms and a clear bottle of what has to be lube. “I assume you’d want me to use a condom,” he says. 

“It’s safer,” Stiles agrees, and Derek doesn’t argue. He just fingers his way into the box and pulls one little square out and Stiles really can’t imagine how something inside that tiny little package is going to go onto Derek’s third leg back there. 

There’s some noises behind Stiles, the bottle opening, some wet noises, and then something – definitely not the third leg – is pushing at Stiles. “Is this okay?” Derek asks. It’s a finger. It has not breached yet, and likely will not until Stiles gives the affirmative. 

“It’s okay,” he says, breathy, nervous, and in the finger goes. It’s tight and slow, made only slightly easier by the lube. Stiles is even more nervous when he says, “Derek, it’s not going to fit.” 

Derek freezes. “You want me to stop?” 

“No, it’s just…” Stiles huffs out a breath and stares down at the black sheets, wishes he didn’t have to be facing away so he could look Derek head on, see his eyes. “I’m nervous.” 

“It’s okay,” Derek starts moving the finger again, in and out, and it gets easier. “See?” 

“Okay,” Stiles agrees. It’s mystifying to him how Derek can go from zero to sixty and vice versa like this; how he goes from telling Stiles he’s going to fuck his lights out straight into assuring Stiles that everything will be okay, then back to manhandling him again, but it keeps him calm. 

Plus, it’s not like Derek is any stranger to sex, or even to deflowering virgins. He’s an expert at finagling his way into people’s pants – Christ, he managed to get into Lydia Martin’s and she’s a renowned ice queen. It took Stiles three months to get anywhere near her like that. Three blessed months, mind you. 

A second finger joins the first and it’s not so bad; Derek seems to know what he’s doing, and he must figure that Stiles is noticing. He says, “I’ve been watching a lot of porn.”

Stiles wants to make a joke to calm himself down, so he says, “lots of guy on guy stuff I’d reckon,” right down into the sheets. 

“Lots,” he agrees, and Stiles swallows. Lots. “Just one more,” he says, and then there’s the third one. It’s a bit of a stretch and Stiles bites his lip because while it doesn’t necessarily hurt, it doesn’t feel good, either. Derek moves in and out slowly, keeping his free hand clasping one of Stiles’ ass cheeks, holding on tight. 

After another few seconds of silence aside from the squelch of Derek’s fingers, he pulls them out. “I think it’s good,” and then, immediately, he feels the third leg pushing its head against him. It’s worse than the fingers. Stiles grips the sheets and sucks in a breath. “It should hurt a little, not a lot,” his voice is calm as he says this, which blows Stiles’ mind, because he’s literally pushing his dick into Stiles’ body. The head makes it in and Derek pauses, breathing, breathing, and Stiles’ fingers are going stiff. “You need to relax.” 

“Isn’t that so fucking easy for you to say?” He snaps, panting a bit. “There’s a limb entering my asshole.” 

Derek’s hips stutter, because his cock wants to be all the way in there, desperately, and he slips in more inadvertently. He says, “fuck, sorry,” all gruff, and Stiles hisses. “Is it a little or a lot?”

“What?”

“The pain.”

“Uh…it’s medium. I just – I need to –“ he adjusts himself, and again, Derek goes inside of him more. Stiles pants, going still, because it’s almost all the way in. 

“Just a little more,” Derek’s voice is shallow, hurried, his breaths erratic. “Just..let me…” he bottoms out, so Stiles can feel pubic hair on his skin, and Derek’s balls, and his thighs. His thighs are shaking, Stiles can feel that, and then there are big hands on Stiles’ hips. “Oh, fuck. Please tell me I can move.” 

Stiles takes in three deep breaths, and forces his body to go as lax as he can make it. He imagines himself as water, just dripping, and his legs spread out a little bit more, so Derek presses closer to him. He uncurls his fingers from the sheets and splays his fingers out, looks over his shoulder to look Derek in the face. 

He’s got ruddy cheeks, a furrowed brow, and his mouth is open. Silent, but open. He’s got sweat on his chest, and Stiles thinks, honestly, he’s never seen something so hot before in his life. And this is the person that’s fucking him, right now, at this exact second. 

“Yeah,” Stiles says, and Derek does. He pulls out, slow, slow, then pushes back in with a grunt, gripping Stiles’ hips so hard there will certainly be bruising there in the morning. It’s weird, at first, the feeling of it inside of him, but after a few more thrusts it stops hurting so much, and sort of bottoms out into something farther away from pain and closer to…good. Not quite completely good, but not completely bad either. Somewhere in the middle. 

Derek’s breaths are erratic, his thrusts going harder, and harder, until Stiles’ entire body is shaking with how hard Derek is moving into him. He hiccups some small noises, surprised at how easily they slide out of him, and Derek wraps his hand around the back of Stiles’ neck.

Pushes it, so the side of Stiles’ face is buried in the sheets, so he can only see Derek above him with one eye. “Fuck,” he grunts, licking his lips and fucking harder, as if that were possible. Stiles can’t complain. It’s good. It will be better next time, if there is a next time, but this is good. It’s not bad, and it doesn’t seem to hurt at all anymore. “Your body is so fucking tight,” Derek says, and Stiles wishes that Derek’s face were closer so they could kiss. 

Should he not be thinking that? 

After a few minutes, Derek’s hips go stuttery. His body tenses up and he pulls his hand off of Stiles’ neck, going back to his hips so he can focus all his energy on the in-and-out of it all. Stiles can feel it, that twitching inside of him, when Derek comes. He grunts it out of him, then breathes shallowly as he lowers his head and kind of gets this look on his face, like he simply cannot believe it. Stiles knows the feeling. 

Derek pulls out of him carefully, slow and easy like he’s afraid of hurting Stiles, and then it’s done. As Derek works at sliding the condom down and off his dick, Stiles gets this thought that he’s not a virgin anymore, and then a second thought that it…doesn’t matter. It never mattered. He feels the same, and it’s a relief, and he laughs because he did it and it wasn’t as scary as he thought it would be. 

The big hands are back on his hips and he’s getting flipped over, onto his back, so he’s staring right up into Derek’s face. He’s got this smirk on his face, the Derek Hale one that’s all confidence and give-a-fuck, and Stiles licks his lips and thinks about kissing, again. “Girls always think it’s better to lie to me and tell me they came,” he starts, apropos of nothing, and then he gestures to where Stiles’ dick is still hard as a crystal between his legs. “I think I like this better.” 

There’s still some lube on Derek’s preferred hand, the left one, Stiles notices, so when he grabs Stiles’ dick and strokes it goes easily, smooth, buttery, and Stiles pants. He stares at Derek’s big hand on him, Derek’s hand the one making him feel good, while that feeling pools in the pit of his stomach and he moans, and Derek smiles. 

“Say my name,” he commands, arrogant and pompous and rich-boy fuck-off. 

Stiles shakes and whines when Derek’s hand stills, as Derek leans over him and leers. 

“Say it,” he is enjoying this way too much, Stiles can tell. 

So, he has no choice. He sucks in a deep breath, and says, “Derek,” low, embarrassed because Derek is looking right at him, and Derek grins and starts up again. Stiles squeezes his eyes shut and tilts his head back, because he’s close, his breaths hitching and his body shaking again. 

“There’s that sound I like.” 

Stiles comes right after he says that, his body jerking, the white stuff getting all over Derek’s hand and Stiles’ stomach and the sheets, just a little, and Stiles blurts, “sorry,” immediately after. 

“It’s not a big deal,” Derek promises, reaching down onto his bedroom floor to grab…a sock. A dirty fucking sock. He wipes the come off of his hands onto the sock, and then attacks Stiles’ stomach with it. 

Stiles jerks away. “Uh, no fucking thanks.” 

It’s too late either way, the come has been wiped off of him with a dirty sock. Derek doesn’t seem to care, sopping it up off of his sheet before sending the sock careening off towards a hamper in the corner of the room. He plops down on his ass on the mattress and Stiles sits up, looks around, sees his pants and underwear and immediately reaches for them. 

Derek gets up and moves to his mini fridge, grabbing another beer. “You want another one?” 

Stiles is shimmying his pants up his legs, buttoning them up as he watches Derek pop open his third beer that Stiles is aware of. He’s stark naked drinking a beer in his bedroom, not a single fuck given, and Stiles doesn’t hate him, in this moment. 

Ignoring that, Stiles sits down on the bed and looks at his shamrock socks, again. “Are you going to circle my picture in the yearbook.” 

Derek sips and stares. “I was not planning on it.”

So, there it is. He’s got everyone else circled like he’s proud of it, had even made mental notes of who he had the best time with and who seemed to know what they were doing and who he liked the most, but Stiles, he will not circle. For reasons that are obvious, but that seemed far away when Derek was fucking him. 

“Do you want one?” Derek repeats, a bit more forcefully this time because Stiles has not answered him. 

“No,” he decides. “I think I’ll go home now.” 

Derek shrugs, like he could not care less what Stiles does or does not do, in spite of everything that had just happened. What had Stiles expected? It doesn’t bother him. He puts his shirt on and checks his jean pockets for his phone and wallet and keys, and all are accounted for. He moves toward the door as Derek puts his jeans back on, no underwear. 

“I’ll walk you out, how about,” he smirks, his pants low on his hips. “That would be the gentlemanly thing to do.” 

Derek actually opens the door for Stiles and gestures for him to go ahead, and Stiles gets this feeling in his stomach like he’s the trash being taken out, or something. Derek’s not thinking that. Or he is. 

They go down the steps, the same way they had before, and the house is just as quiet and immaculate as before, if a little darker since the sun has gone down. They make it to the front door where Stiles’ shoes are waiting, and Derek drinks his beer and watches while Stiles puts them on the ties them up. 

“You okay to drive?” Derek’s voice is teasing. “You had one entire white claw an hour ago, and I know that’s a lot for you.” 

“Ha ha,” Stiles stands up to his full height and pulls his keys out of his pocket. Then he says, “well,” because he isn’t sure what else to say.

Derek pats him, yes, pats him on the back, like one of his football buddies, and opens up the door for him. “See you on Monday,” he smirks, and then the door is shut. Stiles stands on the wipe your paws doormat for a few seconds, staring at the closed door, and then he squares his shoulders. 

There’s no way, not a single chance, that Stiles is about to get in his feelings about this. This is Derek Hale. This is the house where thirty girls have come before him, all standing out on this exact door mat before, staring at a closed door, and Stiles knew that going into it. Stiles does not like Derek Hale; maybe their mutual hatred for each other is simmering down into something else, but Stiles does not like him. Not like that. 

Over his dead body. 

He gets into his car and turns on the radio, like he’s so carefree and over it. Really, he thinks, this will never happen again. Derek has gotten what he wanted and like many before him, Stiles will not get a follow up call. This is the end of the road, and in the end, it’s better for both of them.


	4. Thunder and Lightning

Derek Hale, 2:30 AM : I cannot stop thinking about your skinny, tight little body.   
Derek Hale, 2:31 AM : I want to fuck you everywhere.

**

Stiles is not happy with these texts on Sunday morning when he wakes up. Yes, on Sunday morning, the Lord’s day, Derek has sent him lascivious text messages in the middle of the fucking night like some kind of weird horn dog. He reads them again and again, the blood rushing directly to his dick as he squints his eyes and tries to think of a proper response. Christ, he had really thought..

Me, 9:31 AM : What were you doing up at two in the morning?  
Derek Hale, 9:36 AM : I thought I made that pretty clear.  
Derek Hale, 9:36 AM : I was thinking about fucking you. Duh.   
Me, 9:40 AM : Here I thought you weren’t ever going to call me again. 

It’s hours before Derek answers that text. Stiles cleans his whole room and makes brunch for he and his dad, finishes his weekend homework, and watches a movie all before his phone buzzes again. 

Derek Hale, 5:30 PM : You’re not getting out of this that easily.   
Derek Hale, 5:31 PM : You’re going to the party at Whittemore’s?   
Me, 5:36 PM : Oh let’s see…the home of my ex-girlfriend’s current boyfriend, who also happens to hate me? Can’t wait!  
Derek Hale, 5:37 PM : Fuck off, of course you’re going, everyone is.   
Me, 5:37 PM : I will consider it.   
Me, 5:38 PM : Besides, I don’t know why it would matter whether I were there or not. It’s not like you can talk to me or anything with everyone around. 

That text, Derek does not answer at all.

**

Stiles’ favorite place on campus to study has always been, ironically enough, the bleachers on the football field, especially mid day. The sun is just right in the sky that it’s not glaring at him while he tries to work, and the breeze is nice and cool especially in November when it’s cold but not too cold just yet, so he’s comfortable in his flannel and jeans. And most ideal of all, it’s not as stone cold silent as the library where he finds it hard to concentrate and not as loud as some other courtyards on campus – here, there are the distant sounds of the football team practicing and running around and talking that are more like a low hum in his ears, like white noise.

Even when Derek and Stiles hated each other, he sat here to study. It was easy to ignore him, and vice versa. Now, however, when Derek walks onto the field wearing his uniform, he does not ignore Stiles sitting there. He’s got his helmet dangling from one hand, sees Stiles and stares for a minute or so. Stiles has no reaction; not a wave or a stare back or anything – he just goes back to his work while Derek walks across the field and looks. 

He focuses on calculus problems while they run suicides, and Stiles does not, not even once, look up to track Derek with his eyes. 

Maybe twice. 

He snacks on some pretzels he had stashed away in his backpack and squints up into the sun, while the team down below works on what appears to be passing the football. Aren’t they supposed to be good at that by now? His thoughts are interrupted by the distinct sound of what could only be high heels coming his way on the metal bleachers, and there is only one person on the face of this planet let alone this school who would be walking across the bleachers on the football field in high heels. 

Lydia’s dress blows in the breeze as she sits down and smacks her purse down next to her, two bleachers down from Stiles so that she can sit and face him and prop her feet up on the bleacher in between them. She puts her chin into her fist, her elbow resting up on one of her knees, and she has this insane look on her face. It’s crazy. Stiles has never seen it before. 

“You know I live on the same street as one Derek Hale.”

Stiles puts his books down, abruptly swallowing what pretzel he had in his mouth. He says, slowly, “yeah.” 

She leers at him, the fires of Mordor bearing down on him. “And it’s the funniest thing, I was driving by, and I could’ve sworn I saw your Jeep parked out front.”

“Lots of people have that Jeep,” he counters, but it’s a bad lie and Lydia knows that no one, no one in town, has Stiles’ Jeep. Just him, and him alone.

“And, hours later, when I came back home, it was still there. It kinda made me think, what would Derek and Stiles have possibly been doing in there, together, alone, for hours?”

They stare at one another. Silence. Stiles looks over her shoulder and sees Derek taking his helmet off, squinting up at where the two of them are sitting as he walks to his bottle of Gatorade and his bag parked on the bottom of the bleachers. 

“Look, you can’t tell –“

“I _knew_ it!” She shrieks, hysterical as she bangs her fists onto her knees. It’s enough that people turn to look – Derek, pouring Gatorade into his mouth, and Isaac, and, perhaps most notably, her boyfriend. “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it-“

“Well, you know what?” Stiles is indignant, also nervous, because Lydia ,who has a lot of reasons to hate him, now knows something about him. “I learned a thing or two up there in Derek Hale’s bedroom!”

She goes still. 

“He –“ he’s about to say that Derek showed him the yearbook, but she doesn’t know what the yearbook is, and if she found out, she’d go barreling head long down the bleachers to attack Derek like a spider monkey. So, he corrects “…he told me! You slept with him, like, right after we broke up!” 

She does not have much to say to this. She primly purses her lips and looks away, like this whole conversation is above her. 

“You slept with Derek just to get back at me.”

“You really pissed me the fuck off,” she snaps, and Stiles looks at Derek again. He cannot hear this conversation, but it looks like he’s trying really hard to read his lips. “You – so it’s true, then! You’re…”

“I don’t know,” he interrupts, staring down at the formulas and numbers on the page in front of him. “You can’t…please.”

She blinks, as though Stiles had just reached out and slapped her clean across the face. She looks offended. “Stiles,” her voice is low, severe. “What kind of person do you think that I am?”

Stiles isn’t sure. He hadn’t gotten to know her very well, in the short time they spent together. He feels bad about it all the same, twiddling with his pencil and averting his eyes. 

“I would never, no matter what, tell anyone.” She sucks in a deep breath and smiles, like a satisfied cat. “I just fucking knew it. I knew.” 

They sit there for a minute or two, just basking in the knowledge that…you know. It’s all happened. Lydia knows, and she’s processing it, thinking that so many things, so many, make so much more sense now. 

“And of course I won’t tell Jackson about…um.” 

“Oh, god, can you imagine,” she turns, to where Jackson and Derek are literally standing there talking to one another. “Oh, god, I had never thought of that.”

“Well…” he mimes a key locking his lips, throws it away. “I just know that now, too.” 

She seems pleased with this, like perhaps she had underestimated Stiles in the past. Then, she leans her chin in her palm again, and says in a hushed voice, “so are you and Derek like…a thing, now?”

“Uh.” Honestly, Stiles doesn’t really know how to answer that. Sensing his hesitation, Lydia drops it and changes the subject, lightning quick. 

“Well, whatever. You know, you could do a whole lot better than Derek Hale, Stiles.” 

She gets up, takes her purse with her, and click clacks off of the bleachers to go down there on the field and greet her boyfriend, three feet away from the exact man in question. The thing is, Stiles isn’t really sure that in this fish bowl, this tiny little hamlet, he could do better than Derek Hale. 

Looking at him now, down there on the football field, the star of all of them, the one all the rest of them want to be, it’s hard to imagine that there could be anyone better than Derek Hale. Let alone someone who would actually want anything to do with Stiles. 

On that note, Stiles doesn’t feel very much like doing his homework anymore. Especially not here. He packs up and slings his backpack onto one shoulder, clomping down the steps until he’s on the field itself. He makes a sharp left, away from Derek’s direction, and dives between the bleachers to head back to the school.

He’s made it maybe a hundred feet, and then, “Stilinski,” is called to his back, and immediately, he knows it’s Derek.

Sure enough, he turns around as he’s just coming onto the sidewalk, and sees Derek coming after him. Maybe it’s just the sheer size of him or the fact that he’s got that little outfit on, but he seems menacing, like this. Big. Bigger than normal. Broad with his shoulder pads, his knee pads, his helmet dangling in his hand again. 

“Derek, I really would rather not –“

Derek grabs him by his elbow and pulls him into the boys’ locker room, tugging him all the way inside until the door is shut and they’re alone. 

“What was that about?” He demands, pointing his finger towards the general vicinity of the field. He means Lydia, Stiles knows he does, but he plays dumb. 

“What?” He asks, and Derek makes this face, all scrunched, like _are you serious_? 

“What were you talking to Lydia Martin about?” He’s got this tone in his voice, one that Stiles doesn’t really recognize. It’s almost angry, but it has different qualities. It’s almost…but then, it couldn’t be. “You two aren’t friendly anymore, I thought.” 

“Friendly enough,” he says, and Derek stares at him. 

“What are you playing at?” He demands, as though Stiles is in on some mind game, messing with his head. 

He sighs and knows he’s being difficult, so he presses his palm to his forehead and says, “look, she – you know she lives on your street.” 

“Sure,” he says, like he honestly barely knew that.

“She, you know. Saw my Jeep parked out front and not many people own that car anymore, let alone a powder blue one with a giant dent in the side, so she…”

Derek blinks, like he’s waiting for the punch line. 

“She figured out that we’re fucking – doing –“ he waves his hands around, frantically, “whatever the hell it is that we’re doing!” 

“Okay,” he says, “and?”

Stiles nearly blacks out from the shock of seeing Derek barely react to this information. He had expected him to freak out at least a little bit, because this is – this is a huge secret. For him, maybe even more than for Stiles. “And!? This doesn’t concern you at all?” 

Derek looks him up and down. It’s a heated look. Stiles cannot believe he could be thinking about something like that, at a time like this, but there he is. “Lydia is many things, but she’s not that shitty.” 

“But she –“ he sputters, baffled. He’s hardly even blinked in the face of this information. “She could tell Jackson.”

“She will not tell Jackson,” he says, matter of fact. “You are freaking out. Just –“ he steps forward, like he’s going to put his hands on Stiles, and Stiles slips away, toward the wall. Derek grits his teeth and looks annoyed, like he also thinks that Stiles is being difficult. “She would not do that, what makes you think she would?”

“It’s just…it’s –“ he struggles to find the words. “She said she would never tell, I know she wouldn’t, I just…”

Derek steps closer, again, and this time, Stiles doesn’t try to push him away. “Just what?”

“This is my biggest secret,” he says in a small voice, and Derek looks at him, searching his face. Stiles swallows and feels silly, and Derek puts his hands on Stiles’ hips. 

He looks good, like this. He’s sweaty and smells like fresh cut grass and he’s all big and strong looking, his hair spiked up from ripping his helmet off, and it looks so good like that. 

“Anyone knowing is too many people.”

Derek sort of smiles at him, like he also thinks Stiles is being silly. “She will never in a million years tell anyone her ex-boyfriend wound up gay immediately after dating her,” he taps Stiles’ temple. “Think about it.”

Stiles sucks in a deep breath and then breathes it out, slowly. “You’re right,” he wills himself to calm down, while Derek squeezes Stiles’ hips and comes closer to him. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Of course I am,” he counters, and then leans down to kiss Stiles on the mouth. Once, twice, three times, hurried and rushed. When he pulls back to look Stiles in the face, he says, “plus I’d just tell Jackson about her and I and that would be even worse. To her.” 

Stiles doesn’t know how much he likes the business of hoarding secrets just to use them against people at a later date, when the opportunity presents itself, but he knows Derek doesn’t really mean it. Probably. 

Derek is just leaning down to kiss Stiles again, or tackle his neck or something else, when the tell tale sounds of the rest of the team coming towards the locker room filter their way through the door. Derek pushes Stiles away, a full two feet, like Stiles is on fire or like he’s got the plague, and Stiles stands there and purses his lips.

They stare at one another, Derek realizing what he had just done, Stiles knowing why he did it, and neither of them say anything. The team comes in, loud and raucous, a far cry from what it had been like when it was just Stiles and Derek in here, alone. Derek sucks in a breath through his nose because Stiles just looks at him. It’s not a good look. 

They bang lockers and talk loudly and Theo Raeken notices that Stiles is standing here, that Derek is over here, too, and this is an opportunity for ridicule he cannot pass up. “What are you doing in here, faggot?” He says that word with so much disdain, like he really believes it and he really believes it’s the same as saying cockroach. “Did you come to have a look-see at Derek Hale getting undressed?”

He laughs and Jackson grimaces like he doesn’t find it funny but isn’t going to comment on it, Isaac makes a face and then hides it in his locker, and the rest of the team laughs. Derek just stands there. He just fucking stands there, idly, like his brain is buffering. 

Derek grits his teeth and his jaw ticks, and Stiles thinks, _say something. Do something. Hit him. Say something_. 

Of course, Derek says nothing. Does nothing. He just turns and makes his way over to his own locker, leaving Stiles standing there by himself, frowning, his arms crossed over his chest defensively. 

Stiles doesn’t say anything either, he just walks past all of them and ignores them and leaves, storming off and away. He goes to the main building, throws the door open and sniffles. He will not cry. 

He will not cry. Not here. 

He gets to his locker and sucks in a deep breath, hiding his face behind the door as the bell rings for next period, and there are suddenly other people all around him, everywhere. He grabs his books and looks down, so no one can get a good look at his face. 

Scott materializes and is talking to him, immediately. He says, “I think I just aced my Spanish test –“ and then, after one look at Stiles’ pale face, his big eyes, he frowns. “What’s the matter?”

Stiles looks away, at the books in his arms. “Nothing, just –“ he shakes his head and Scott is still waiting for an answer. “Derek Hale is a fucking asshole.” 

“Well, yeah,” Scott says, like it’s a no-brainer. “What’d he do this time?”

“I don’t want –“ to talk about it, but Stiles doesn’t even have to finish that sentence.

“Say no more,” he says, waving his hand like it’s all forgotten. Then, he puts his arm around Stiles’ shoulders as they walk off to their next class, one of the few they share together. “What do you say we do pizza and video games at mine tonight?” 

Derek is coming down the hallway – he’s got on different clothes, but it doesn’t seem as though he had showered, like he normally does after practice. He had frantically changed out of his uniform and chased after Stiles, most likely. 

But Stiles won’t look at him. He presses up against his best friend’s side and agrees to pizza and video games, while Derek stares at him.

**

Derek Hale, 5:57 PM : I get the idea you want me to apologize to you.  
Me, 6:11 PM : I really, really don’t.  
Derek Hale, 6:15 PM : Well good, because I don’t have anything to be sorry for.  
Derek Hale, 7:54 PM : You know, your silent treatment bullshit is fucking infuriating.  
Me, 8:10 PM : Maybe you should take the hint and figure I don’t want to talk to you.  
Derek Hale, 8:12 PM : I don’t even get what you think I did wrong.

This is the last text Stiles gets before he makes it home from Scott’s around nine o’clock. His dad’s cruiser is gone, long gone, not to be back for several hours yet, so Stiles locks the door behind him and climbs up the steps, belly full of pizza. It’s amazing what a night with your oldest friend can do for even the worst moods and the worst situations. Scott always knows when to push the issue for answers and when to just pretend the issue doesn’t exist, he’s always known Stiles better than anyone else ever could. 

Well. Except for one thing.

Stiles gets to his bedroom and pulls his wallet, keys, and phone out, dumping them all onto his bedside table before sitting down on his bed to pull his shoes off. It’s as he’s dumping his second shoe onto the ground that he looks up and sees Derek Hale hovering in his window, a frown on his face. This time, Stiles doesn’t startle. 

He stands from his bed and seriously considers pulling the shade down right in his face, but decides that making Derek that angry probably isn’t a very good idea, and also, is too immature even for him. So, he opens the window and squats down. 

“Let me in,” Derek demands, and Stiles blinks at him.

“Why would I do that?”

“What are you so mad at me for?” He growls, pulling himself as far in through the window as he can get without crushing Stiles. “What do you expect me to fucking do or say?”

“You want to kiss me and fuck me and that’s fine,” Stiles says, and Derek grits his teeth. His jaw twitches the way it always used to when they would fight. “But you can’t just – just – stand there while someone calls me a faggot.”

Derek comes inside. All the way in, nearly stomping on Stiles in the process, so Stiles backs away and stands up to his full height at the same time Derek does. “What. Do you expect me. To do.” 

“Say something!” 

“To Theo Raeken,” he laughs, like the idea is ridiculous, ludicrous, absurd. 

“Aren’t you the quarterback? Aren’t you the team captain?” Stiles shouts at him, and Derek palms his face. “What are you so scared of standing up to Theo Raeken for?”

Derek shakes his head and looks up at the ceiling, with his hands on his hips. “Stiles,” he says, slow and carefully, “my whole life rests on me getting this full ride to Beacon –“

Stiles cannot believe he’s going to have to stand here and listen to this, this fucking bullshit, Derek’s fucking bullshit. 

“…if I get into Beacon, if I get into the football program there, it could all be – it could all happen for me, do you get that?”

“I don’t see how –“

“Listen to me,” he interrupts, snaps, so Stiles has to close his mouth. “I cannot, first semester of my senior year, start causing problems on the team. Scouters look for that kind of bullshit, do you understand me?” 

“But he’s the one who –“

“You’re right,” he offers, clapping his hands together. “You’re right, he’s wrong, he’s a piece of shit. But they don’t see it that way. You know, sports – football more than a lot of others…” he trails off, moving his hands like he’s at a loss for words. “There’s a lot of…”

“Yeah, okay,” Stiles rasps, then sits down on the edge of his bed. “Fuck it, whatever.”

Derek stands there, silent, watching Stiles to deduce whether or not he’s going to stay mad about this. 

“How long have you been waiting out there for me to come home?”

“I just got here ten minutes ago,” he says, and then, “where were you?”

“What, does it matter to you?”

Derek doesn’t say anything for a moment, just looks him up and down, as though he’s looking for evidence of something. “You and McCall don’t –“

“No, holy shit!” Stiles stands up, it’s so shocking of an idea. “No, I don’t fuck my best friend!”

This outburst does not seem to phase Derek in the slightest. He just nods his head and paces across Stiles’ bedroom once, and then he says, “and there’s not anyone else?”

“Who else am I fucking?” Stiles asks, gesturing around his bedroom as if to say _behold, all the suitors._ “What, are you jealous?”

This is the word that Stiles hadn’t wanted to think let alone actually say out loud when they were talking in the locker room. When Derek had seemed weird about him talking to Lydia again, at the prospect of Stiles and Lydia being friends. 

Derek puts his hands on his hips, and the j-word does not freak him out. He says, “you can do what you want,” which isn’t an answer, and is at the same time. 

“You are giving me whiplash,” Stiles sits back down, puts his head in his hands. “You wanna ignore me, then you wanna fuck me, then you wanna throw me outside like it didn’t even mean anything to you –“

“…you were the one who said you wanted to leave, but okay.”

“…then you wanna act like I don’t exist at school, then you wanna get mad about me talking to Lydia or going to Scott’s house because I might be fucking them, then you wanna stand there and let one of your friends call me a faggot and not do anything about it.”

“He is not my friend,” Derek hisses, serious, so Stiles takes him seriously, blinking with the severity of it. “You are over complicating this,” he accuses, and Stiles looks out the window and wants to get out of this conversation, more than anything. “You are making this into more than it has to be. All I wanna do is fuck you, do you have any idea –“ he puts his head in his hand, palming his face, his forehead, and breathes in deep. “I just. Can you fucking not give me the god damn silent treatment, please.” 

Stiles crosses his arms over his chest, but says nothing. 

“If you wanna be mad at me, fine, but just ignoring me – can you please not do that, for fuck’s sake. It makes me…” he holds his hands out, makes infuriated gestures, and Stiles sighs through his nose and has to admit that if someone did that to him, he’d go insane too. 

“Okay,” he agrees. “Then can you not get fucking weird about me talking to Lydia?” 

“I wasn’t getting weird about it.” 

“I don’t know who this Casanova person is that’s fucking everyone around him, but it is not me. If it’s anyone, it’s you.”

“Well,” Derek starts, and then the word hangs there while his mouth works over some words he’s debating saying. “I’m not fucking anyone else, either. So.” 

Stiles is quiet, so Derek comes over and sits down next to him on the bed. They sit in silence for a minute or two, both of them just calming down; Derek’s fists clench and unclench on his knees, like he’s thinking about something that pisses him off, something outside of the realm of Stiles, but is trying to stop thinking about it. 

“You’re really banking on Beacon’s football program, huh?” 

Derek cracks his knuckles, frowning. “Football is the only thing that I’m good at,” he says, brutal. “It’s all that I can manage to understand and all I can do. If I can’t do that…” he shrugs, staring off into space. “And Beacon has the best program on this coast. I mean, it’s not the University of Florida, but –“

“Is the University of Florida like a football school…?”

“Oh, _yeah_ ,” Derek is serious as all get out as he says this. “It’s – Theo applied there.” 

“And you didn’t?” 

“It’s not everything,” he says. “I wanna go to Beacon, that’s what I want. That’s what I want. If I can get in for football, then…”

There’s no way his grades alone will get him there. Not even close. Stiles would know, he’s about to start the application process himself. 

“Coach says I’m as good as in if I just keep my fucking head down, if I just focus.”

Then, Stiles has no choice but to understand Derek’s desperation for secrecy; but it’s not exactly fair for him to get to have his cake and eat it, too. His entire life, so he says, is riding on him going to Beacon and getting into the football program. And, believe it or not, something like fucking Stiles Stilinski could really screw his chances of that happening. Even today. 

“I’m really good,” he says to Stiles as if Stiles doesn’t know this already. “You’ve never come to a game.” 

“Oh, uh –“ he rubs the back of his neck. Of course he’s never been to a fucking football game. 

“There’s one on Friday, before the party, you know.” He seems sort of standoffish, not meeting Stiles’ eyes, like he could give a shit less whether Stiles comes or not. “It’s not your thing.”

“I mean…no,” he admits. “Scott and Allison like to go, though, so. I dunno, maybe.” 

“Okay.” Derek says. Then, “do you want to…”

“You wanna have sex?” Stiles clarifies, and Derek rubs at his jaw and shrugs. 

“Of course I do,” he says, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Of course it is, here, alone, where no one will see them or hear them or ever know. Of course he does.

**

“You want to do what with us?” Allison yells at him across the lunch table, nearly dropping a spoonful of yogurt onto the table .

“I wanna go to the football game with you guys,” he repeats, while Scott and Allison both stare at him as though he’s got ten heads coming out of his shoulders. “It’s a rite of passage.” 

“Just yesterday, you’re in the hallway nearly crying because Derek pissed you off so bad, now you wanna go and cheer him on?” Scott’s antenna is up again. 

Allison stirs her yogurt slowly and assesses him. She is looking for a head injury, or a lobotomy scar, Stiles is sure of it. 

“That’s not anything new,” Stiles offers. Right now, just across the cafeteria, Derek is holding court with his usual band of idiots, eating pizza and fucking off like he always is. Stiles pointedly doesn’t look in his direction, especially not when his friends’ eyes are on him like this, but he can’t stop from thinking about last night, when Derek had fucked bruises onto his thighs that he can still feel as he’s having this conversation. “Derek and I are getting better, and I feel bad I’ve missed so much stuff just because of him.”

“That’s a good point,” Allison perks up, because she, for one, is of the opinion that Stiles and Derek being friends could only bring good things. Scott, on the other hand, is suspicious because he knows Stiles better. And he knows Derek better. “Okay, great!”

“Are you going to bring your giant foam finger and your Derek Hale jersey along?” Scott mutters under his breath, because this pisses him off for reasons unfathomable to Allison, who nudges him hard until he sighs and rearranges his face. “Okay, great,” he parrots Allison, and Stiles figures this conversation went just about as well as it could have. 

“The tickets are ten a piece, if you give me money, I’ll go –“

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, you have to fucking pay to go see a bunch of amateurs knock each other around on a field?” 

His friends share a look. “It’s how they pay for their uniforms,” Allison says. 

“Christ…” he mutters. “The three richest kids in school are on the football team, yet we peasants have to supply their fucking uniforms.” 

“There’s the spirit,” Scott gestures to Stiles with a grin, and Allison rolls her eyes.

**

Stiles is wearing his Beacon Hills debate team sweatshirt again, feeling out of place among a sea of kids chattering in excitement for something that Stiles could honestly not care less about. There are Beacon Hills kids in maroon, and cheerleaders, and then there are kids from the other school wearing green and looking like they belong here more than Stiles does.

He puts his hands in his pockets, a nervous tick, and presses as close to Scott and Allison as he can in the crowd moving steadily onto the football field where they’ll all filter onto bleachers and it will all get even louder. He feels ridiculous, for reasons he’s not sure of. It’s like everyone knows he’s not really supposed to be here. 

Isaac comes up to the them and does some kind of a handshake thing with Scott, which Stiles narrows his eyes at – Stiles and Scott don’t have their own fucking handshake. Then again, that’s likely because Scott knows he’d get made fun of if he posed the idea to Stiles, so maybe that’s fair. 

When Isaac sees Stiles standing there, he blinks and double-takes him. “Stilinski,” he greets, obviously baffled by this development. It does not help Stiles feel more comfortable, at all.

Stiles grimaces a smile and waves. “Hey,” he says, and that’s all he says. 

“You have never come to one of these before, have you?” He looks over his shoulder, as though he’s looking for Derek somewhere back there in the crowd. “I mean, you…”

“He’s in the school spirit,” Allison puts his arm around Stiles’ shoulders and squeezes, so Stiles feels like he’s her kid or something. 

“Well, okay,” Isaac decides, although he seems like he suspects that Stiles is here to perhaps blow the entire stadium up. He reaches out and gives Stiles one of those patented bro pats that all the football players dole out to other men at any possible opportunity, and then he says, “try not to bother Derek too much, this is an important game.” 

With that he sprints off toward the field, as though he would expect Stiles to slap him in the face for saying something like that. It’s not far off; Stiles grits his teeth and decides he doesn’t like Isaac very much, though they had already established that just on account of the guy moving in on his best friend. 

“You’re not here to bother Derek, are you?” Scott asks, a suspicious note to his voice. They’re moving closer to the where the guy is going to take their tickets and usher them inside the game itself – Stiles is annoyed. It’s fair for people to suspect that Stiles would want to sabotage Derek during “an important game”, he reckons, but it’s still annoying that people think he would ever do something like that. As if he’s ever been that immature. 

“No, I am not,” he says. “I’m here to see it for myself.” 

“The team is good this year,” Allison chirps as their tickets get stamped and then they’re inside, the lights bright, blinding, high up, the sound of people banging on the bleachers deafening. “I mean, they were good last year but this is Derek’s best season yet. So they say.” 

“Good for him, because they’re watching him extra close, I think,” they start moving up the steps to look for a good spot, and find one maybe halfway up, an empty space between a couple of girls Stiles recognizes from his lunch period and a gaggle of basketball players. Stiles wonders if those boys are ever embittered by the sheer popularity of the football team, lately. When Stiles was growing up, it was basketball that Beacon Hills High was known for, but now the team sort of…sucks. 

As they sit down, Stiles asks, “who’s watching him?”

“Who isn’t?” Scott jokes, and then he takes Allison’s purse and starts pulling out all the snacks he had packed in Ziploc bags – popcorn, chips, a trail mix, gummy bears. He hands Stiles the gummy bears without having to be asked, knowing that they’re Stiles’ favorite. “Football scouters do not fuck around, man. You could be some random kid at any random high school and as long as someone there has the right connections and you’re good enough, they’ll find you. Someone like Derek comes along once in a lifetime.”

Stiles stares out at the field, where the cheerleaders are all gaggled up on the sidelines stretching and murmuring to one another, their pom poms on the ground around their feet as they get ready to start their bullshit. “Once in a lifetime,” Stiles repeats. 

“Someone who eats, sleeps, and breathes football. It’s his whole life, it’s all he cares about, and he’s good at it,” Scott shoves a handful of popcorn into his mouth and shrugs. “Even I have to admit that.” 

Allison waves down Lydia Martin, much to Stiles’ chagrin, so Lydia heads straight for them. She’s got her face painted with Jackson’s initials, maroon bows in her hair, and frankly, she looks a little ridiculous. But she looks pretty happy to be done up like an honorary cheerleader, so Stiles makes absolutely no comment on it as she sits down next to Allison and starts chattering the second she can. 

As he looks around the crowd, the sound of Scott’s popcorn eating very loud in his ears, he sees a lot of other people done up much the same as her. Face paint and school colors and elaborate hair bows, big signs with certain teammates’ names on them. He had never realized it was this big of a fucking deal to people; he knew the team was good, he knew that Derek was their golden God, he knew that people were into it. 

He just did not know it was all this. The bleachers are packed to capacity with people, and there are still some overflow people standing around at the entrances trying to get a good look at the field. How long has it been this big of a deal? 

The cheerleaders start hollering and revving the crowd up, clapping and jumping around, until everyone is paying attention to them. They do some flips and some typical cheerleader shit, bouncing around with their pom poms and big smiles glued onto their faces, and then they start up with the chanting. Everyone enthusiastically joins in, even Scott and Allison, while Stiles sits there and eats his gummy bears, very much feeling like he’s in some weird nightmare he had once. 

It becomes apparent after a few seconds or so of them demanding the crowd to give them a D and this that and the other thing that they’re spelling Derek’s name – the whole name. They’re taking the time to do so, and the crowd is eating that shit up. Erica Reyes is up there with this big fake smile on her face demanding people spell her ex-boyfriend’s name, and it’s a wonder she hasn’t quit the team yet. 

They finish spelling and yell _Derek Hale_ so loud it’s deafening, and then there he is. He walks out onto the field from the direction of the locker rooms and he’s smiling. It’s not this big grin, the shit-eating one he usually sports when he’s feeling particularly arrogant – it’s just a smile, a small one. The crowd goes apeshit; they stand on their feet, Allison and Scott too so Stiles has no choice but to join, and cheer for him. Just for him. The other members of the team are trailing out after him, but Stiles knows it’s just for Derek. Maybe Derek knows that too. 

“What is he, a prodigy?” Stiles demands, having to yell in Scott’s ear. 

“The kid is like lightning,” he says back, like that actually even means anything. It doesn’t, not Stiles, so he just watches as Derek starts scanning the crowd, looking for faces. Probably his mother or his sisters, Stiles would guess, but then his eyes land on Stiles standing there with his gummy bears. 

The smile on his face goes bigger, all teeth, and then he looks away and pushes his helmet onto his head as though he doesn’t want anyone else to see him smiling that way. No one around him seems to notice that Derek was looking at him, but Stiles knows. 

The game starts up not long after that, with a coin toss and Beacon Hills getting to choose their side of the field and this that and the other thing. Stiles can honestly say he has never, not once in his life, sat and watched a football game before, so as they start doing stuff on the field, Stiles is a little…lost. He knows that the point of the game is to get a touchdown and he knows how one goes about doing it, but as for all the fancy footwork and the small, intricate details of it, that’s all a mystery to him. One thing that he does notice as the game progresses is that Derek is fast. Like…lightning, like Scott had said. He’s never seen someone be so fast before, least of all someone as big as he is. He’s like a rock in an avalanche, he’s that fucking fast and that fucking big. 

At one point he gets his hands on the ball and he throws it without barely thinking about it, like he had already scanned the field and made his decision and had the entire play in his head – the thing is like an arrow, cutting through the air like it’s got wings. Members from the other team try to reach their hands up to stop it, running after it like chickens with their heads cut off, but then Isaac Lahey catches it, and everyone goes psycho. 

The score on the board changes and Stiles realizes that was just a touchdown, and Isaac is running the length of the field with his arms held out while the crowd stomps on the bleachers and cheers. For his part, Derek does nothing. No showboating, no exaggerated excitement, nothing. He just stands there and nods likes yes, of course, I made the touchdown pass, what else is new? 

The game goes on like that until halftime, when Beacon Hills is in the lead by fourteen points and everyone on this side of the bleachers is in a good mood. Allison and Lydia excuse themselves to the bathroom, likely to be gone for the entire fifteen minutes until the game starts up again, leaving Stiles and Scott just sitting there eating snacks while everyone around them chatters. 

Stiles chews his gummy bears and watches as Derek sits down on the bench by the side of the field, drinks water, wipes sweat off of his brow and looks up into the crowd again. He immediately finds Stiles, and Stiles wishes he could know what he was thinking – what goes through his mind when he’s on the field, if anything does, or if it’s all just plays and x’s and o’s on a field in his mind. He looks at Stiles and then looks away, because Jackson says something to him and he responds. Stiles can’t read lips. 

“He is really good,” he says out loud, before he can stop himself, and Scott shrugs like _told ya._

“It’s a shame he’s such a piece of shit. Talent like that, you know,” he shakes his head, “you don’t get that easily.”

Stiles imagines that Derek has spent his entire life working, and working, and training, and working, so he can be not just good, not just great, but the best. The best he could possibly be, the best anyone has ever seen before, and then Stiles wonders who exactly it is he’s spent all this time trying to impress. Himself? His father? His mother? No one? 

“He’s got that rare thing, you know. Big and fast. It’s hard to be big and fast.”

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees, watching Derek laugh at something Jackson says. 

“But watch, he’ll have a great night and win this game and then we’ll see him shitfaced at Whittemore’s house all over some cheerleader after making a drunken ass of himself and pissing everyone off,” he shakes his head. “What a shame.”

**

Stiles had been wishy-washy about it when Derek had asked if he was going, and even just tonight he had been on the fence about it – all the same, he walks into Jackson Whittemore’s house two hours later and is surrounded by his classmates. They had won the game, because of course they had, but even if they hadn’t they still all would’ve come here to drink and fuck off because it’s Friday night and they can do whatever they want.

It’s loud. There is music blaring at top volume and a raucous flip cup game being played in the living room where a table has been set up just for that purpose, it would seem. They go into the kitchen where the drinks always are, and Stiles grabs a PBR from the cooler while Allison and Scott start mixing drinks at the counter. 

Stiles grips his beer can and looks out across the party, all these kids he barely sees even when he’s at school with them because he pretends they all don’t exist. He thinks, not for the first time, that maybe he’d have more friends if he wasn’t so intent on believing he were somehow smarter than the rest of them. People like him, yes, and they know him and don’t usually take issue with him, but they’re not his friends. 

He wanders off to the living room where he takes a seat on the couch, big and empty aside from him, to watch the flipcup game take place. Through a sliding window door leading out to the back patio, he sees a small crowd of football players, some of them smoking cigarettes, some of them just standing there drinking. Derek is among them, leaning up against the wall of the house with a red party cup in his hand, talking animatedly to Isaac, likely about something that happened in the game. Stiles tears his eyes away and vows not to look at him again, drinking his beer and sinking deeper into the couch. 

“Mind if we join you, Stiles?” Someone says to his left, so he looks up and there’s that big-titted Heather girl that Allison and Scott wanted to set him up with. He sits up a bit so he doesn’t look so pathetic or like he’s sad about anything, which of course he isn’t not even a little bit, and he gestures to the empty spots on the couch. 

“Go for it,” he says, and her and her cheerleader friends all sit down and put their drinks down on the coffee table. They’re all drinking white claws, so Stiles turns his head and looks at Derek out the window again, thinks about how Derek says he keeps white claws in his weird alcoholic mini fridge just for when he has girls over. These girls. Stiles recognizes one of them from Derek’s yearbook, and he clears his throat and looks away from Derek again. 

“You came to the game, Stiles?” That same yearbook girl is now addressing him, and Stiles feels like the biggest piece of trash that he remembers that Derek slept with her but not what her name is – Sammy? 

“Uh, yeah,” he says, and they’re all looking at him. “It’s not really my thing, but.”

“It’s fun though, isn’t it?” Heather says, and she’s looking right at him like she is genuinely interested in what he has to say. “All the people and the lights and the team is so good this year. You know, we haven’t lost a game yet.”

The other girls murmur in agreement and then look to Stiles again. 

“Wow,” he says, and then, for reasons unbeknownst even to him, he says this next. “Probably because of Derek Hale, huh.”

He looks at the yearbook girl for any kind of reaction, but she just sips her drink and smiles like yes, of course, because of that fucking asshole Derek Hale. Heather says, “he is so amazing. He’ll be pro, I just know it.”

“If he can manage to stay sober for more than a day at a time, sure,” Sammy or Sarah or whatever says this, and ah, there it is. That bitterness from being one of Derek Hale’s cast-offs, even as she has that tight smile on her face. “But what are the odds?”

Heather puts her hand on Stiles’ arm, like they’re old chums, and this is the moment he realizes she is here because she likes him and wants to fuck him, most likely. He looks somewhere at an imaginary camera and cannot believe this is happening to him, here and now. “Sophie’s just mad because Derek didn’t want to date her,” she explains with a wink. Stiles is getting winked at by the most attractive girl on the cheerleading squad. 

“I’m mad because he’s an egotistical sack of horseshit, but yes, that too,” she rolls her eyes like this is a conversation she’s had with her friends many times before and is tired of having to keep talking about it. “He still is really good at football.”

Stiles is at a complete loss for words. Sophie is irritated and the other cheerleader who hasn’t said a single word is texting on her phone and Heather is just looking at him, blinking and looking and Stiles has got to make a break for it. Somehow, someway. 

“Speak of the devil,” Heather says, and Stiles turns his head and sees that Derek is coming in through the patio doors alone, leaving his teammates behind and stepping onto the carpet. He sees Stiles sitting there and double-takes, just like everyone has been doing to him all night long, and then double-takes again as he sees who Stiles’ company is. “And the devil shall appear.” 

“Stilinski,” Derek greets, and then he looks at the girls. Sophie actually gets up and walks away, which Derek barely reacts to at all, but Heather stays sitting right there, so Derek probably can’t even say half of what he actually wants to. “You came to the game.”

Stiles is nervous. He cannot fathom why he’s nervous; maybe because he’s just spent a whole night hearing about how Derek is this untouchable talent, hearing people chant his name and cheer for him, and now Derek is standing here up close and personal, and he’s only looking at Stiles. “I sure did,” he says, and wipes a sweaty palm on his jeans. “You know Heather.”

Derek looks at Heather, who gives him a three fingered wave and smiles. She seems pretty nice and also just pretty, but Stiles wants to get away from her so bad, so fucking bad. He downs his beer, sucking it down like his life depends on it, and then he stands. “Tank’s empty,” he says by way of explanation, and then goes to the kitchen, leaving Derek standing there with Heather and her large chest and her pretty face. 

Allison and Scott aren’t here anymore, so they’ve likely taken their drinks and gone off to mingle like the normal, sociable people they are. Stiles is an introvert and he doesn’t have very many friends or admirers like Derek does, so he gets another beer and then just stands there drinking it by himself for a minute or two. This is starting to feel like a mirror image of that party at Lydia Martin’s house, eons ago now, when Derek had first kissed him. 

“Hi, Stiles,” someone says to him, likely a girl from one of his classes, and Stiles says hi back and leans against the counter sucking in a deep breath. “You don’t usually come to this stuff.”

Stiles looks over and sees that the person speaking to him is in his AP History class, a Lauren something. “That’s what I’ve been hearing all night long,” he says, and she smiles like he’s just made a funny joke. “I’ve decided to involve myself more in school spirit.” 

She blinks at him and cocks her head to the side, and Stiles wonders if now she is flirting with him, too. “In spite of the Derek Hale of it all?” 

Stiles wonders if there is one person, one single solitary fucking person in this room who does not want to talk to him about Derek Hale and how he doesn’t usually come to this kind of shit on account of Derek Hale and Derek Hale and Derek Hale. Christ, doesn’t anyone else of note go to this fucking school? 

He chugs his beer and finishes it, setting it down next to him on the counter. “Do you know where there are any bathrooms in this house?” 

She sighs and points down the hall and then up, towards the stairs. Stiles thanks her and decides he wants to go upstairs, away from all this bullshit, and hopefully there will be less people up there than there are down here, where Stiles is starting to feel crowded. As he heads towards the stairs he sees that Derek is sitting on the arm of the couch talking to Heather, and of course he is, the fucking asshole, so he just goes up and does not spend any time lingering on the thought. 

Up here there are some people mingling in the halls, talking quietly in corners and eyeing Stiles as he goes past them, but no one says anything to him, thank god. Luckiest of all is when he finds the bathroom and discovers it dark and empty, so he breathes a sigh of relief and closes the door behind himself. 

He walks up to the mirror and looks at his face, his freckles and his spiky hair and his pale skin, and frowns. There is no possible way that Heather or Lauren was flirting with him down there – no fucking way. He leans down and washes his face with some water, rubbing himself dry with a hand towel nearby and then sighing through his nose. 

A knock comes on the door and Stiles says, “occupied,” running his hands through his hair. 

The door opens anyway, and Stiles is about to get really fucking irritated, but then, it’s Derek Hale. Derek Hale slides inside and closes the door behind himself, locks it, smirks. He’s got two drinks, now – one in his hand and one tucked into the crook of his arm, balanced there very precariously. “I brought you a real drink,” he says with a shit-eating grin, and Stiles feels very irritated by him in spite of the fact that tonight, Derek really hasn’t done much of anything for Stiles to get irritated by. 

“No, thanks,” he spits, haughtily looking away. 

“It’s coconut rum and Pepsi,” Derek explains, holding the drink out anyway and shaking the ice around loudly until Stiles has no choice but to take it if only to stop the annoyance. “It’s like a taste of the islands.” 

Stiles doesn’t say anything. He just holds his red cup and listens as Derek drinks his quickly, sip after sip, like he’s really only here to try and get drunk as fast as he possibly can, like he didn’t just play a perfect game, like everyone here doesn’t love him. 

Then he thinks about Sophie saying sure he’s good at football but he’s still a piece of shit. Thinks about Scott calling him lightning but saying he’ll just be here, in this house, becoming a useless drunk by night’s end. People do not love him, maybe not. 

“You came to the game,” Derek says, in this very not-Derek voice that speaks of maybe how he’s had just a little too much to drink already, because it’s sincere and not loaded with arrogance. Stiles came to the game like Derek had asked him to, and this pleases him – there’s no hidden meaning there. 

So, then, Stiles won’t be irritated with him anymore. He sighs. “I hate parties,” he offers, and Derek blinks like he hadn’t known this very obvious fact about Stiles. He takes a sip of the drink and it does kinda taste like the islands, so he has another sip. “I just never know, um…” he shrugs, feeling small underneath Derek’s gaze. “I don’t have very many friends.” 

“People like you,” Derek says this with honesty, like of course they do – his brow is furrowed like he cannot believe Stiles could really think that people don’t. 

“Oh, do they?” He laughs, a not very funny one, and rubs the rim of his cup. “How would you know?”

“Because I know everyone,” he contends, like duh. “People like you. You’ve got a cool name and you’re attractive and you’re funny.”

“Cool name and funny, sure,” he scrunches his nose. “Attractive, no.”

Derek leans against the sink and looks at him, really looks, in a calculating way that has Stiles blushing and looking away. He feels like he’s being seen, like _seen_ seen, the way Lydia can use her eyes to get to the core of him, when she feels like it. Derek puts his cup down and reaches out, pushing a strand of hair that’s hanging down on Stiles’ forehead back, his fingers rough but soft when he touches. Then, he uses those fingers to poke at where Stiles knows there to be moles on his face, each individual one, until Stiles laughs and pushes Derek’s hand away.

“Don’t mess with me,” he says, and Derek shakes his head. 

“All day long I think about how badly I want to bend you over and be inside of you, and you really think you’re not attractive?”

“Don’t say stuff like that,” he immediately says, looking away again and crossing his arms over his chest defensively. 

“Why not?”

“Because it’s – it’s just –“ he shakes his head and laughs, an uncomfortable laugh that makes him want to reach up cover his mouth with his hand to stifle it. 

Derek pulls on Stiles’ wrist to get his hand away from his face, and then he boxes him in. He puts his hands on the counter , on either side of Stiles’ body, leaning in close to him. He had showered after the game, so he smells like Old Spice and alcohol and a bit like cigarette smoke, as he leans in and kisses Stiles on the mouth. 

They kiss for a while, nothing but the sounds of their mouths moving together in the quiet. The sounds of the party are distant, muted, far away enough for Stiles to pretend it’s not there at all. Like he and Derek are alone, entirely, completely. 

Derek reaches down and tries to touch Stiles, but Stiles snickers and pushes Derek’s hand away. “I am not having sex with you in Jackson Whittemore’s bathroom.”

Derek laughs and his nose scrunches up. “Fair enough.” A pause, as Derek breathes in Stiles’ scent, their faces so close. 

Stiles says, “you’re like lightning.” 

“Oh, yeah?”

“I’ve never seen somebody so fast. How do you get to be so fast?” 

“It’s a natural talent,” he shrugs, though he’s not meeting Stiles’ eyes, as though there’s more to the story than he would care to admit. “I also worked my ass off and still do – my gym log is gross to look at.” 

Stiles gives him a sly glance, and then he pulls back some more so he can look Derek fully in the face. “Can I ask you something?” 

Derek smirks. The arrogant one. 

“Did you ever – when we would get into fights…” he trails off and bites his lip because Derek is looking right at him.”…did you ever. You know. Maybe not be as hard on me as you could’ve been.”

Derek’s answer is immediate. “Oh, I held back yeah,” he grins like it’s funny, hilarious. “As much as I hated you I didn’t want to actually kill you.”

“As if you could have.”

Derek gives him a look. “Stiles.” 

With a huff, Stiles shrugs his shoulders and looks away again. “Whatever.”

“You were feisty, but come on. I won all those fights even though I held back, and you know it.” 

That he did, Stiles cannot deny it. Most of the time there was no conclusion to the fights anyway because someone would come along and break it up, but it’s hard to deny that Derek more often than not held the upper hand. 

“It’s funny how all that energy I used to use to fight with you, now I just wanna pour into fucking your lights out.”

Stiles allows that comment, but he sips his drink and pushes Derek away, just a bit. “I should really go find my friends,” he says, and Derek looks disappointed but nods his head like he gets it. “You’re really good, like you said. Everyone thinks you could go pro.”

“The thing is, I really don’t care much what everyone thinks,” he shrugs, but Stiles knows that it mattered to Derek, for whatever reason, that Stiles come and see how good he is. He didn’t see Derek’s mother or sisters there, after all. 

With that, Stiles leaves the bathroom and goes back downstairs to scout out Scott and Allison – he finds them at a little table off the kitchen, a breakfast nook normally, and they’re playing cards with Isaac Lahey and a couple of other people Stiles doesn’t have names for. 

As soon as Scott sees him his eyes go huge and he beckons him over, cawing, “Stiles!!!”, at full volume, so everyone turns to look at him. “You have to come play! Stiles is the best at shuffling, the best I’ve ever seen,” he explains to the table at large, so Stiles makes his way over and takes the only empty seat, next to Isaac who doesn’t seem all that put out to see him. Maybe Isaac doesn’t completely and totally hate him, after all. 

Stiles plays cards with them for maybe an hour, if a little bit longer – it’s long enough that he finishes the drink Derek had made him, and then switches back over to a beer that he’s still nursing when they decide they’re finished playing and are just all sitting there talking. Isaac gets up and leaves without a word, pushing his chair back in neatly and vanishing into the veins of the party, leaving Stiles sitting there with just Scott and Allison, the other members of their group long gone. 

“This is fun, huh?” Scott asks him, nudging him a bit in the shoulder. “It’s not quite like being tortured in an underground bunker, is it?”

As a natural extrovert, Scott will never be able to understand Stiles’ aversion to parties and big groups of people, so Stiles lets this comment go over his head and just smiles. “It’s not that bad,” he agrees. “But I think I’m gonna go pretty soon.”

“Okay,” though he seems a little disappointed. 

Stiles stands up and stretches his legs, taking his beer with him. “I’m just gonna do the rounds one more time.” 

The kitchen is emptier than it was before, the clock on the stove reading past one in the morning, so lots of people have already left and there’s already more room to move and breathe in here. The kitchen is a fucking mess, cans and bottles and spills everywhere, but that’s not Stiles’ problem. The foyer is quieter, too, less insane music and more hushed voices talking, a couple of girls sat on the steps, one of them crying. That’s not unusual, so Stiles ignores it and makes his way to the living room. The flip cup table has been abandoned, a graveyard of red cups where some are flipped and some are sitting upright, quarters scattered across it and an empty pitcher of what once held beer sat in the middle of it .

He scans the perimeter of the room and sees very few people – Sophie is still here with her arms crossed looking pissed beyond all belief, and Isaac is talking to Theo Raeken and then on the couch Heather, the one who had definitely not been hitting on Stiles earlier, is making out with someone. That alone isn’t surprising, because this is a party and lots of alcohol has been going around – but then Stiles looks again and sees it’s…Derek. Hale. His Derek Hale.

Not _his_ Derek Hale, because of course they’re nothing, nothing at all, but they – it’s just. Derek had kissed Stiles upstairs and. They had just kissed. Stiles freezes in his place and knows he’s being obvious, his face draining of color as he sees it, the horrible thing across the room, but he can’t help it. His mind whirs like a computer fan turning on as he tries to make sense of it, because Derek had just kissed Stiles not two hours ago upstairs. Not two fucking hours ago. He said he wasn’t fucking anyone else, got mad at the prospect of Stiles fucking anyone else, and now here he is. In front of everyone. 

Scott’s voice is in his ear and he’s patting Stiles on the shoulder, but Stiles is still stuck frozen on the spot. “Ya getting ready to go?” He asks, and then follows Stiles’ eyeline. He sees the scene on the couch, right before Derek pulls away and says something to Heather that Stiles can’t hear. “Oh, yikes.”

Yikes. Yikes, yikes, yikes – Stiles grips his beer can so hard it’s a wonder it’s not crumpling under the weight of it. Derek turns his head just enough to see Stiles standing there, and then blinks with a frown on his face, like he’s making sure he’s really seeing him. He is drunk. His eyes give it away. 

“Why is that guy constantly getting with any girl who shows you the least bit of attention,” Scott hisses like he’s really angry about this, hands on his hips, clucking his tongue, shaking his head. Derek looks right at Stiles and Heather is looking right at Derek and Stiles…has got to get out of this room. 

“I need some air,” he says, handing Scott his beer for some reason. Stiles doesn’t very much want it anymore, so Scott takes it and frowns. “I’ve gotta…” he moves to go, averting his eyes from the scene as Derek sees that Stiles is going to run away. Derek says something, while Stiles is making his way out of the room, toward the sliding glass doors to the patio where no one is standing anymore, and Heather says, “what’s wrong??”

Derek is up. He leaps over the back of the couch, athletic as ever, but he stumbles a bit on the landing because he’s drunk. Drunk as he ever fucking is. Stiles ignores this and everyone ignores him, as he pulls open the door and slams it shut behind him, heading for the tree line. He doesn’t know where he intends to go, but he knows he’s going out, and away, far from the lights where anyone could see him. 

Derek doesn’t follow him out the sliding glass door, of course he doesn’t, because that would be too obvious. But he does follow him outside, from another back door, the screen door slamming behind him so Stiles knows he’s coming. “Stilinski,” he calls, and Stiles ignores him. He keeps going, around the house, to the side where the only lights come from the windows – they’re dim, barely anything, barely enough to even see where he’s going. 

“Stilinski,” Derek calls again, much closer, until he’s right there, around the house. He leans his arm against the paneling and huffs. “ _You’re_ fucking fast.” 

“You don’t owe me any kind of an explanation, Derek Hale,” he hisses, his lip wobbling. He will not cry. He will not cry. He will not. “It’s not like this is anything real, it’s not like we’re anything! So go ahead and kiss whoever, I don’t care!” 

Derek’s angry. He looks at Stiles with his eyes all blacked out, because maybe he is blacked out and he won’t even remember this conversation tomorrow. “You don’t care,” he repeats. “That’s why you ran out of the room like it was on fire, because you don’t care.” 

“Because you can’t fucking kiss me and then two hours later kiss someone else! You fucking asshole!” 

Derek runs his hands down his face and mutters something under his breath, that sounds kinda like _too fucked up for this shit right now_ , but then he pulls his hands away. “She came onto me, man, what am I supposed to do?”

“What?” Stiles hisses, like the words make no sense at all. “Not fucking do anything!”

“You can’t just,” Derek leans up against the house for more support, and every second that goes by is a second he looks worse, more intoxicated than ever before, barely standing on his own two feet. “You don’t just – you can’t just not hook up with someone like her.”

“I…” Stiles is at a loss for words. This is unbelievable. “You are…such a piece of shit, oh my God. And I always knew that, and I don’t know what I was thinking, this is all my fault, obviously!”

“People would…” he hiccups, pushes himself up to stand all the way. “They would think something was fucking up if I didn’t hook up with her.” 

Stiles doesn’t even know where to start with this. He crosses his arms over his chest and his chin is wobbling again, but he won’t cry. He will not give Derek Hale the satisfaction, not here – he looks at the house, the lights, the fading sounds of a dying party, and is reminded again of Lydia Martin’s house. 

Derek actually moves towards him, like he’s going to put his hands on Stiles, do something to him; however innocuous it may be, Stiles wants nothing to do with it right now. “Stop,” Stiles snaps, backing away into the house, but Derek puts his hands on him anyway and moves like he’s going to kiss Stiles on the mouth. 

His breath reeks, he’s sweaty, and he’s barely coherent. Stiles shoves him away, as hard as he can. “You are _shitfaced,_ ” he accuses, and Derek staggers back, and then, unbelievably, falls on his ass. “Derek, you fucking asshole.” 

“Right, because I’m just a fuck up, anyway,” he snaps from the ground, and Stiles palms his face. As angry as he is at Derek right now, he cannot in good conscience just leave this kid out here by himself. He can barely form a sentence, let alone find a way to get home. “You’ve always thought you were so much fucking better than me.”

“Shut up,” Stiles hisses at him, and then he gets his phone out and dials Scott. Scott answers immediately, like he’s been waiting for this call. “I need your help,” he says, while Derek sits on the ground and puts his head in his hands. He looks so miserable there, just this pile of nothing on the ground in the dirt, and Stiles honest to god thinks the guy might cry. It’s a stark contrast to the guy on the football field, the king, the faultless winner. 

Scott appears and stops dead in his tracks. “What the hell is this?” He demands, approaching the scene cautiously. It must be baffling to see it; Stiles with teary eyes and Derek on the ground so drunk he can’t stand up, both of them here together in the dark. 

“I just need to get him inside,” Stiles says instead of answering, and Scott gives him a look but doesn’t make a comment or ask any more questions. 

“You get his left I’ll get his right,” Scott says, and then they’re struggling to support Derek’s dead weight on their shoulders as they huff and puff to the back patio door again. Isaac sees them coming, so he furrows his brow and opens up the sliding glass door for them. Derek is muttering something, drunkenly that probably isn’t anything, so Stiles and Scott both ignore it. 

“Get him on the couch,” Isaac commands – fifteen minutes ago Heather had been here, but now she’s gone, like she was never here at all. Stiles and Scott dump him face first onto the couch, and then Isaac pushes them aside and pulls Derek’s face out of the pillows and turns it to the side, so if he pukes in the night he won’t choke on it and die. Isaac stands up straight and sort of looks like he deals with this kind of nonsense on a weekly basis, an exhausted frown on his face. 

Stiles’ work here is done. He says, “I want to go home,” to Scott, who calls an Uber as they walk out the front door and sit on the porch steps, Stiles leaning up against the bannister. “How’s Allison getting home?”

“She’s sleeping at Lydia’s. They already left,” he explains, and then he’s quiet for just a second. “What was all that back there?” 

“What?” Stiles feigns ignorance, staring off down the street of the quiet neighborhood.

“What were you doing out there with Derek Hale?”

Stiles sits up. He’s got red rimmed eyes and a frown on his face and Scott knows beyond any shadow of a doubt that there is something going on here that Stiles isn’t telling him, hasn’t been telling him for a long time now, and this feels like the perfect opportunity to tell him. Right here, all alone, no one else around, just him and his best friend. 

But this is a secret Stiles has held for so long, not just about Derek, but about…him. Who he is. He’s afraid of the truth, of what Scott’s reaction to it would be, so he cries. Just a few traitor tears, spilling down his cheeks before he can stop them. 

“He’s just such a fucking asshole,” he grits from between his teeth, and Scott blinks at him. There is more to the story, Scott knows that much, but tonight, he will not press the issue. He puts his hand on Stiles’ back and just sits there with him, lets Stiles cry all the way until the car gets there to take them home.


	5. Locker Room Talk

It’s the week of Thanksgiving break. Stiles only has to show up to school on Monday and Tuesday and then he’s home free for a whole five days. He even got out of the dreaded Wednesday before Thanksgiving shift at work, which was something that when he had seen the schedule had made him pump his fist in delight. Now he kinda wishes he had something to do that Wednesday, instead of just sitting at home playing video games all by himself. 

The immediate, first thing that Stiles does when he gets home from the party on Friday night is block Derek’s number. He knows that in the morning, Derek will wake up and want to text him or call him, maybe explain himself or maybe not because he won’t even remember. Stiles cannot imagine what he’ll have to say for himself, and in a way, it doesn’t necessarily matter. He hadn’t known what he was thinking about the situation they were in, and he doesn’t remember thinking that Derek of course wasn’t allowed to be with anyone else in any capacity, but that type of relationship requires strings and he hadn’t seen any where he and Derek were concerned. 

But he had seen it, and it was awful. Maybe there were strings after all, and Derek’s actions had ripped them right out of him, and it felt like absolute horse shit. Stiles is angry and hurt just like he had been when Derek immediately took up with Erica after kissing Stiles at Lydia Martin’s house. Then he had kissed Heather after kissing Stiles at Jackson Whittemore’s house. There’s a pattern, a cycle, and Stiles wants out. 

On Monday, Scott sits in the passenger seat and obviously has things to ask and things to say, but he reads the look on Stiles’ face as unhappy and decides that if Stiles will not bring it up then he will not ask. He talks about school instead, about what the spread at Thanksgiving will look like and if the Sheriff is making his world famous stuffing and if Melissa is making pumpkin pie or apple this year. 

When they get to school, Derek is already there. It’s the luck of the draw that he is just getting out of his car when Stiles pulls into his spot. The sight of him in his stupid letterman jacket with all the pins and his sunglasses and that frown permanently etched into his face except for when he’s being a jackass makes Stiles’ stomach clench, so he grits his teeth and vows not to even look at him. 

“You figure he even remembers kissing the prettiest girl in school?” Scott asks, a needling edge to his voice. He’s digging for information. 

Stiles pulls his keys out of the ignition and tears his own sunglasses from his face, stuffs them into the middle compartment. “Who cares?” He asks, so Scott huffs a sigh and looks up at the sky. 

Derek slams his driver’s side door and looks like he’s going to stand there and wait for Stiles to get out so he can grab him and force him to look right into his face and talk to him and explain why his calls go right to voicemail, why his texts never get read, why Stiles is doing the “silent treatment bullshit” again. 

Stiles gets out and closes his door and doesn’t even glance in his direction. He just goes around the back of his car and meets Scott there, starts walking in tandem with him towards the school. Stiles can hear Derek’s footsteps behind them as they go, but he tries to ignore it in favor of focusing on whatever conversation Scott decides to have with him. 

For these entire two days before break, it goes on much like this. Stiles practically stays superglued to Scott’s side so there’s never an opportunity for Derek to get Stiles alone, never a chance for him to hunt him down and drag him into some closet or bathroom to have it out with him. 

Stiles had been stupid to do anything with Derek Hale aside from treat him like he doesn’t exist. He finds himself longing for the days when they would fight, and not because he wants Derek to hit him or because he wants to hit Derek, but just because the emotions of those days were simpler. Now, they’re a tangled web in his head, intersecting with his thoughts about who he is, about who Derek is, about what they are to each other. 

Nothing. And it is better off, in the end. 

Wednesday comes, and the Sheriff goes to work right after breakfast with a promise to be home in time to start prepping for the big meal tomorrow, leaving Stiles alone in the house, the silence. He sets his chin in his palm at the kitchen table, pushing his uneaten eggs around and thinking of Derek in his own empty house. Miles of silent hallways, mountains of barely treaded steps. 

He does the dishes and listens to a podcast, watching as the neighbor’s cat chases after a dog in his backyard. Stiles wishes he had a cat. Or a dog. Or someone to keep him company. It’s weird, because before all this shit with Derek happened, he was more than content to spend an entire day by himself in his house, eating snacks and watching television and doing shit-all. 

Something about shutting Derek out makes him feel lonelier than he did before. 

Stiles goes upstairs where his xbox and television awaits him, sits down in his desk chair and huffs a sigh as he turns the console on like it’s a chore instead of something he actually wants to do. He scrolls through all his games and then even looks through game pass, but nothing interests him. It’s as he’s seriously considering paying forty dollars for a new game he doesn’t even want that he hears some rustling outside his window that has him turning to stare off into space with a deep frown on his face. 

It could be a raccoon. He just knows it isn’t. 

Derek pulls himself into frame through the window, hefting himself up like it’s easy to scale up the side of a house using nothing but his own arms to get him there, and then he looks through the window and immediately meets Stiles’ eyes. 

It’s not the usual arrogant smirk that he sees, or even the classic Derek Hale miserable frown. Derek stares in at him with his lips flat, his eyes blank, no expression on his face whatsoever. He does not look happy, but then he doesn’t really look like much of anything. This is an expression Stiles does not know what to do with. 

He stands and bends down, pulling the window open. “I didn’t think you’d let me in,” Derek says, and Stiles snorts. 

“I’m only letting you in so I can tell you to get out,” he informs, standing back to let Derek climb in. “Getting down is harder than getting up, I’d think.” 

Derek comes inside, one foot after the other. He parks himself on the window sill and raises his eyebrows, the silent suggestion there that Stiles cannot force Derek to leave now that he’s here. “You –“

“You don’t owe me any explanation,” Stiles cuts him off, returning to his desk chair to sit and be miserable across the room. “Because you just…don’t. That wasn’t a real relationship, it wasn’t anything, so of course you can kiss whoever else you want.”

Derek has his hands on his knees. As Stiles speaks, he curls the fingers and his jaw twitches. 

“So, you know,” he mimes a mouth with his hand, flaps it, “blah blah blah, I had to because the boys were watching, blah blah blah, it’d be insane to not do it, blah – spare me.” 

“It would be insane to not do it,” he says, and Stiles seriously considers throwing his xbox controller at the other boy’s head. “A girl like that comes onto me, me specifically, Derek Hale, and I don’t do anything?” 

“I just told you I don’t want to hear it,” Stiles hisses. “I know. I get it.”

Derek holds his hands out to the room, as though he’s searching for an explanation. “Then I don’t get it. You fucking acting like I don’t exist.” 

“Because you kissed me not two hours before that,” he points to himself. 

“You just said we’re not even in an actual relationship so I can kiss whoever –“

“Okay, you got me!” Stiles throws his hands in the air and frowns. “I’m irrational and stupid and the whole thing is my fault for being so dramatic about it, you fucking got me. Can we be done with this, now?” 

Derek stares at him and then he stands up, tall and big, his eyes clear and not foggy like they had been the last time Stiles had stared directly into them. “You’re trying to completely cut me out of your life –“

“You were never a part of my life,” Stiles is cold-blooded when he says this, mean, petty, nasty. Derek blinks, taken aback, because Stiles is sharp and can be a bit callous, but he’s not usually mean just for the sake of it. 

“You’re doing all this because of something you’re _not_ mad about,” he puts his hands on his hips. “If I wanted to deal with this, I could be fucking a girl.” 

“You literally could be,” Stiles laughs, sarcastic. “There is nothing stopping you!” 

Derek thrusts his hands out and looks frustrated, like any second he’s going to punch his fist through a wall. “What is the fucking problem? Can you be god damn straight with me?” 

Stiles sucks in a deep breath. “The problem is you fucking stood up there with me and you kissed me and said you weren’t fucking anyone else and that I shouldn’t either and – and – all this bullshit about how you think about me all day and you – and you want me, and then I see you with someone else!” Stiles’ voice cracks and betrays him, so his secret that he’s hurt more than angry is out there in the open, and he has to turn away and face his desk so that Derek won’t see his eyes water up. “That’s my problem, but it evidently isn’t yours,” he keeps his eyes trained downward and swipes at a tear, just one, and turns around all the way so Derek can’t see his face at all. “Can you please go, now? You’ve sufficiently explained yourself.” 

Derek doesn’t move or say anything for a long time. It has become apparent to him, most likely, that this is not an argument. This isn’t an opportunity for him to prove himself as right and Stiles as wrong – it is simply a terrible moment where Stiles is forced to bare his emotions, and they’re bad. They are not good. This is no fight. 

Stiles sniffles and wishes Derek would go away already. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Derek mutters under his breath, so Stiles turns to look at him over his shoulder. He’s got his eyes trained up to the ceiling and his hands still on his hips, his lips shut up tight. When he looks back down, he looks at the ground, kind of like a chastised little kid. “I’m sorry,” he says this like it’s being pulled out of him by a string. “I didn’t – this is not what I intended.” 

“Okay,” Stiles says, because really, what else is he expected to say in this situation? “Can you go?” He’s still crying, and this is a big humiliation to him because he’s crying in front of Derek fucking Hale who he has sworn time and time again he will not and would not cry in front of, and Derek is just fucking standing there, watching him. 

“Hey, don’t –“ he steps forward, towards where Stiles is sitting, but doesn’t come all the way over. “Stop crying, I – I’m sorry, I didn’t know it –“ he sighs, sitting down on the edge of the bed and covering his eyes with his hands. “I barely fucking remember it, Stiles.”

“Oh, that makes me feel better,” his sarcasm is white hot. 

“I know it doesn’t make it better. I don’t even remember talking to you after the fact,” he gestures out to the window, as if someone is out there, “I only knew you had seen anything because Isaac told me you and McCall pulled me in from outside. I don’t remember what I said to you.” 

“I’ll refresh your memory,” Stiles swipes his ruddy cheeks one last time and turns to face him all the way, scowling. “You went on about how you had no choice and it would make you seem like a faggot if you didn’t make out with Heather Bigtits and then you tried to kiss me and told me I think I’m better than you.” 

Derek sets his jaw and does not look happy about this. “Well,” he says. 

“Well,” Stiles repeats back to him, and then they sit there staring at each other for a moment. 

“My intention was not to – it wasn’t to – to hurt you. I probably thought you’d never even find out about it.”

“Probably?”

“I don’t remember exactly what was going through my mind at the time, okay?” He snaps, and Stiles wants to say something shitty about the alcohol again, but he won’t. “I wouldn’t have had sex with her.” 

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“God dammit, Stiles!” He snaps, angrier than he’s been this entire conversation. “I fucking don’t know what you want me to say! You think I’ve spent very much time apologizing to people?” 

Stiles would think not. It seems like every girl he’s ever screwed around with either doesn’t care about him or acts like he’s the scum of the earth – many of them are likely owed apologies for something or other. Stiles has heard the stories. He puked on Jessica after eating her out, which is a fan favorite story to tell. He kissed two girls who had been best friends before on the same night. He has probably hooked up with girls and said he’d call and then never has. And Stiles thinks these are all scenarios in which Derek has not offered even an explanation for his behaviors, let alone an actual apology. 

“Everybody was watching me because everyone is always watching me, and I had to do something because if I didn’t I’d never hear the end of it, and I – it was just a kiss. I don’t even fucking talk to that girl.”

Stiles crosses his arms over his chest and mutters, “you talked to her a lot that night, I saw it.”

Derek pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m a shitty drunk, what do you want me to tell you? Can you at least understand my position at all? Even a little bit?” 

Of course Stiles does have to get it a little bit. Christ, according to popular opinion, the guy would fuck a boom stick if it had breasts and a hole. It would be bizarre beyond if he just up and out of the blue decided not to hook up with Heather, who is much better than a broom stick. “People wouldn’t automatically assume you’re a homo just because you turned down a kiss from a pretty girl.” 

“Have you met Theo?”

Stiles frowns. “Okay, fair.” 

Derek runs his hands down his face and sucks in a deep breath, like he’s about to say something that isn’t very easy for him to say. “The entire thing made me feel like shit,” he says, voice even and low. “The entire fucking thing, I don’t want to – I don’t want to make you feel like that. And you shutting me out was just…” his jaw works and nothing comes out, like he can’t even find the words. “Can you…please. Just please do not cut me off for this shit. I was drunk, it was stupid, I won’t do that again.” 

Stiles thinks about this, for just a moment. He can tell that Derek is sincere, but a part of him, however small it actually was, really wanted this guy out of his fucking life. He had seen a side of him that night, some dark and twisted side to him with all the alcohol, that he’s not sure he wants to encounter again. But is that all Derek is? 

Some people think so. No one really knows him; not even Stiles. 

“So if you’re not going to kiss or be with other people, except me,” Stiles twiddles his fingers, “what does that mean?”

Derek looks away and takes his jacket off, like this conversation has overheated him. “Why are you always trying to put labels on everything?” 

“Because you want to fuck me and be around me, and if you want to do that, then I want an answer.” 

This is something Derek knows he can’t get out of, and he looks miffed at being put in this situation. He hems and haws. “I’m not gay,” he says. “I just like to – I like sex. With anyone, maybe.”

“Okay,” Stiles shrugs, because that wasn’t really an answer. 

“I just wanna be with you,” he snaps, like he’s fucking pissed the hell off about it. “That’s all I know, is that good enough?” 

Stiles bites back a smile and he can’t linger on why this makes him as happy as it does, when these past few days this whatevership had made him fucking miserable. Derek has problems, it’s obvious, it is clear, and maybe Stiles isn’t a peach either but Derek is…something else. Stiles isn’t judging him for the alcohol or for any of it, it is just an observation that he has made and continues to ignore. “I guess.” 

“Are you done treating me like I’m invisible?”

“I guess,” Stiles repeats, and Derek huffs.

“Can you unblock my fucking number?”

“You figured out I blocked you, huh?” 

“I’m not that stupid,” he scoffs. “Of course you blocked me.” 

Stiles reaches for where he left his phone on his desk, picks it up and smirks. When he comes to the lock screen he sees a reminder blinking at him, and automatically he stands and makes his way over to his bedside table. He sits down next to Derek and grabs his bottle of adderall, so the pills rattle around. “It’s that time again,” he jokes, popping one pill in and washing it down with water from his hydro flask. 

Derek watches. He says, “they’ve got you on a pretty high dose, I noticed.” 

After he swallows and screws the cap back on his water bottle he shrugs. “I’ve got a pretty high case of ADHD. Combined type, baby.” 

This information again does not seem to surprise Derek, because it does not surprise most people. It’s pretty obvious to anyone who knows Stiles that he has ADHD, even when he’s keeping up with his pills. Derek drums his fingers on his knee and watches as Stiles goes through the motions of unblocking Derek in his phone, silent for a moment. Then he says, “you like taking that stuff?”

“I love taking that stuff,” he gives Derek a sly look. “It works for me. You know, it just kinda…” he holds his hands out symmetrically, almost miming a straight line. “It just makes my brain feel normal, and you really can’t put a price on that.” 

Derek nods like he gets it, even if he can’t really imagine it. Stiles puts his phone on his bedside table and rests his chin in his hand, sighing through his nose – this had gone better than he’d expected it to. He kinda expected Derek to come, and be an asshole, and then he’d go and Stiles would never talk to him again and the whole thing would’ve gone on to feel like a fever dream, to both of them. 

Following the same line of conversation, Stiles says, “I noticed you don’t take your anti-depressants.” 

“I don’t really need to be on that stuff anyway,” he waves this off like it’s nothing, but Stiles would honestly beg to differ. It’s none of his business, but…seriously. “You know rich people. Their kid starts acting weird and their only response is to put them on drugs.” He shrugs and smirks, as though this amuses him. It’s really not that funny, actually. All the same, Derek does not want to keep having this conversation any longer, because he instantly changes the subject. “How did McCall feel about having to carry me inside?”

“Oh, Christ,” Stiles laughs, because this, actually, is funny. “Uhhh…ambivalent, at best. But he’s a trooper and he kept his mouth shut.” 

“I think he hates me more than the average person does.” 

“He definitely does, but he’s also too nice to really do anything about it, so you’re safe.” 

Derek nods, and they sit there quietly in each other’s personal space for a minute or two, neither or them speaking. Derek wrings his hands together and sighs deep, like this has been a deeply stressful day for him, maybe stressful few days. He rubs his eyes like he hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep and in general, now that Stiles is really looking at him, looks a bit unkempt. Hair a bit greasy and messy, clothes wrinkled like he just threw on the first thing he found on his floor. 

“You wanna watch a movie or something?” He gestures to his tv, still on and waiting for him. “Or, you probably have to go home and get ready for tomorrow.” 

Derek makes a face. “We don’t really do Thanksgiving at my house.” 

“Uh…what?” Stiles has never heard of that before. Sure, he’s heard of people ignoring the traditions and shunning the myth of the “First Thanksgiving,” but he has never met an American citizen who didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving even a little bit. 

He shrugs. 

“I’d invite you over so you could experience the dinner for once, but uh – you know.” Stiles can imagine what would happen if he said oh yeah, by the way, I invited Derek fucking Hale to Thanksgiving dinner. His dad would keel over dead. 

Derek grins, all teeth. “So yeah, I can watch a movie with you.” 

“Okay,” Stiles agrees, and then just like that, they’re back to baseline.

**

Throughout dinner the following day, even though there is so much to do and so much to eat and Scott and Melissa come over and football is on the television, all Stiles can really seem to think about is Derek Hale. When they had watched a movie together in Stiles’ bedroom, Stiles had rested his head on Derek’s chest and Derek just…let him. It was probably the most intimate thing Derek and he have ever done together, which is saying a lot, seeing as how they’ve had sex a handful of times, now.

It was just so…Stiles finds himself running his fork through his mashed potatoes more than he is eating them, but no one at the table seems to notice. 

“You okay?” Scott asks after watching Stiles slice his pumpkin pie into a dozen pieces instead of taking even a single bite of it. 

Stiles looks up and says “huh?”, as if he’s been awoken from a stupor. 

Scott looks over his shoulder to see that both of the adults are eating their pie at the television so they can watch the highlights from both of the games, talking amongst themselves with their backs turned to Scott and Stiles. So, Scott sits down next to him with an empty plate, and starts serving himself a second slice of pie. “Can I ask you something?” 

Stiles puts his fork down. Then, he picks it back up so he can have something to do with his hands. “Uh, sure.” He’s very afraid that he knows what this is going to be about .

With a sly, nervous look, Scott takes a big bite of pie before speaking with his mouth full. “You promise not to get mad?”

“I can’t promise that until I know what the question is,” Stiles takes a bite if only to give himself time to formulate a response to whatever it is Scott is about to ask him.

After swallowing, Scott looks Stiles right in his face. “What were you doing outside with Derek Hale at Jackson’s house?”

Stiles chews, chews, chews, and his mind goes blank. The only thing that comes to him is the truth, and that wouldn’t do, not at all, especially not right in front of his father. He scrambles mentally, trying to come up with something, anything. “I wasn’t outside _with_ him,” is the best he can do. “I just uh – found him.”

“Yeah, but you saw him kissing Heather Newman and ran out the door before him,” he points out, “and then he followed you.” 

Leave it to Scott to suddenly become observant the second Stiles actually has a secret to keep, for once. “He did not follow me,” Stiles is not a very good liar, and Scott knows this. 

“I think, and I have thought for a little while, now,” he scrapes his plate, staring down at it like he doesn’t want to meet Stiles’ eyes, “that you’re not telling me something.” 

“Like what?” Stiles fake laughs, to try and make it convincing. “That I’m friends with Derek Hale?”

“No, because you would tell me that,” he looks at Stiles, serious, and it’s an odd look to see on Scott’s face. “Just…I dunno. You’re around less, you’re moody, you’ve like…cried over the guy?”

“I have not cried,” even though he definitely, definitely fucking has. 

“I just wonder if something has happened that you’re afraid to tell me. Like…if he’s done something?” 

Stiles looks at him, narrows his eyes. “What do you possibly think he could have done to me that’s that bad?”

“Well, I don’t know, but this is Derek Hale we’re talking about,” he says this like of course, there is an endless litany of possible things that Derek could do. Terrible, very bad things, and it’s a no brainer that Derek would do them. Of course he would. 

“He is not the boogeymonster that you seem to think he is,” Stiles mutters, and Scott points at him, like _my point exactly_. 

“See? See what I mean? A few months ago you would’ve rather chewed glass than to say something that nice about him, now here you are, defending him, for no reason!”

“Look,” Stiles pushes his plate away from him and turns his body, giving Scott his full attention. “…you were the one who told me it was time to grow up and stop picking fights with him. Now, I’m on better terms with him, and this upsets you?”

Scott mulls that over for a moment, seeming to know that he’s been bested in this particular conversation. “I guess you’re right,” he agrees, and then goes back to eating his pie like the conversation hadn’t happened at all. 

Stiles feels bad about it the second it’s done and over with, because he’s never really lied to his best friend before. Especially not about something this important, and especially not this many times in a row. It makes him nervous for when the truth will have to finally come out, but then Stiles wonders when that would even be. If that time will ever come at all.

**

Derek Hale, 11:34 PM : Are you awake?  
Me, 11:34 PM : Wide. I’m fucking up my sleep schedule over break.  
Derek Hale, 11:37 PM : I’m thinking about fucking you.  
Derek Hale, 11:38 PM : In my bed, again.  
Me, 11:41 PM : Oh, yikes.  
Derek Hale, 11:43 PM : Why is that an oh, yikes?  
Me, 11:43 PM : Most things you say are an oh, yikes.  
Derek Hale, 11:45 PM : What are the odds of getting you to sneak out to come over to my house?

Stiles puts his phone down on his chest and stares at his ceiling like _are you fucking kidding me?_

Me, 11:48 PM : Like zero.  
Derek Hale, 11:48 PM : I get the sense that you’ve barely done anything wrong your whole life.  
Derek Hale, 11:49 PM : My house is big enough you could get in and out and no one would know you were ever there.   
Derek Hale, 11:50 PM : You just have to sneak out, and we’re in the clear. I’ll come pick you up.   
Me, 11:52 PM : No way. I’d never get away with it, no way, no how, no fucking way. 

All the same, Stiles finds himself staring out his bedroom window in the dark, fully dressed even though he had been in his PJ’s just fifteen minutes ago, frowning. He doesn’t know how he got convinced to fucking do this, considering all the degrees to which he could get in trouble for doing so – but here he is.

It doesn’t take long for headlights to come turning onto Stiles’ block, a dark car slowing to a stop on the curb right outside of his house. Stiles huffs and opens his window, sticking one leg out slowly and carefully, because he’s actually never done this before. He has never once in his life climbed out his fucking window in the middle of the night. Believe it or not. 

He gets both legs out and makes the mistake of looking down, sees nothing but dark earth and lots of space in between his feet and it, so he blinks and looks away quickly. With sharp scraping sounds of his shoes on the shingles, he shuffles his way to the lattice covered with vines on the side of his house, conveniently right next to the sloping roof outside his window, and latches onto it. He grips hard, nervous, and then swings his body out and holds on for dear life. 

He does not fall to his death, unbelievably, but rather, climbs down at a slow and steady pace, as quietly as he can manage. He keeps flicking his eyes to his father’s bedroom window, only a few feet away from where he’s currently descending, to make sure the light doesn’t turn on. 

When it’s time for him to hop off, he gets his foot tangled in some of the vines of the lattice and he falls down, into a bush and a pile of leaves, much to his chagrin. He stands up, damp and irritated, and tip toes across the grass to where Derek’s car is waiting for him. 

He opens the passenger door and sits, coming face to face with Derek. Who’s laughing. “What’s fucking funny?” Stiles demands, even though he’s certain he already knows the answer. 

Derek pulls into drive and hits the gas, smirking to himself as he moves the car forward, towards the stop sign waiting for them up ahead. “You just aren’t very coordinated.” 

“Not everyone’s on the football team,” he says, and Derek shoots him a look.

“You say that all the time,” he stops, looks both ways, and starts again down the next street over. “Like only football players can run or climb down lattices without breaking their necks.”

“I didn’t break my neck,” he reaches up and picks a leaf out of his hair, flicking it down into Derek’s footwell, and then he realizes that he’s actually in Derek Hale’s car. The car. The one that he’s seen a hundred thousand times before, made fun of, fantasized about keying, gotten thrown up against, broken the side mirror off of. But he’s never once set foot inside of the thing, hasn’t even really gotten a glance at the interior much because the windows are so tinted and dark.

It’s nice, but it’s not exactly neat, on the inside. The seats are leather, the real stuff, smooth to the touch with buttons on the center console to warm them up, should the need arise. Some of the buttons are fading away with use, the mats under their feet dirty and covered in grass and leaves, likely from Derek tracking them in from the field and the woods all the time. 

In the backseat, there’s a gym bag and a dirty pair of socks on the seat, empty Gatorade bottles all over the floor. Derek himself is dressed in dark jeans and his letterman jacket, again, as though he doesn’t even own any other articles of clothing – his face illuminated by the moon and the lights on the dash, he looks different. 

By the time Stiles has taken in all these details, they’re climbing the sprawling hill up to the Hale estate – where very few windows are lit up, this time of night. Derek’s room, all the way up top, and then a couple others on the bottom floor, but nowhere else. 

He slides into a spot in the huge garage and then closes the door behind him with a mechanical whirr, so Stiles starts. “Isn’t someone going to hear that?” He demands, paranoid, even as Derek just pops his door open and frowns at him.

“No one’s going to come checking to see what it is,” he says, like it’s a no-brainer. “Obviously it’s the garage.” 

“But…” Stiles trails off, because doesn’t he have a curfew? Does no one care that he’s out and about past midnight? Is no one interested at all in what he’s doing? Derek is already out and heading toward a door that must lead to the inside of the house, so Stiles scrambles to follow him, gently closing the door instead of slamming it like Derek had done, to make as little noise as possible. 

He catches up right as Derek is keying his way inside, and then they’re spilling out into a mud room. It’s got coat hangers and more of those anal shoe racks – Stiles doesn’t have to be asked to bend down, untie, and sort his away into the rack marked as guests. Derek stuffs his into another rack and gestures for Stiles to follow him, as they go off into the darkened kitchen. 

Stiles doesn’t get a very good look around, because the only lights are the ones spilling in from the mud room and from the hallway – but he sees a kitchen aid and a huge breakfast island and more pots and pans hanging from the ceiling than anyone would ever need. They go into a long hallway, past a living room and a den and then finally to the familiar foyer, where the staircase lies in wait for them. 

Up they go, past the creepy pictures of the Hale children, Derek’s picture the worst of them all for how miserable he looks, and then they’re on the second floor. Here, there is a door cracked open halfway down the hall, where a girl’s voice filters out and a purpleish light spills across the floor. It must be one of Derek’s sisters, but Derek pays it no mind. He just goes right for the next set of stairs, the looming and terrible picture of his father glaring at them as they make their way up to the very top of the house. 

No one seems to even notice them, like they’re ghosts. Stiles wonders if this is what Derek’s life is like all the time; if he is invisible in this house, day after day. 

Derek’s room looks the same as always, if slightly more cleaned up than the last time Stiles had been here. Most of the clothes are in the hamper, this time, so he can see more of the floor, and what beer cans there are are in the waste basket instead of lining the desk or scattered across his bedside table. 

“Is your room off limits to the maid?” Stiles jokes, but Derek actually takes it seriously, so he gives a serious answer. 

“It’s a cleaning company, and yes,” he leans down and opens up his mini fridge, pulling out a PBR and a white claw. “I told my mother to not let them up here.” 

He tosses Stiles the white claw, which Stiles only barely manages to catch, and straightens back up to his full height. As he pops open his beer he looks around, taking in the full sight of his own bedroom. “It’s not that bad.” 

Stiles notices that those pill bottles are still in exactly the same place he had seen them last, untouched, unmoved, still full. “You probably don’t want them finding your slutty yearbook. It is in poor taste, after all.”

“Yup, that’s it.” 

Like last time, Stiles feels a little unsure of what he’s supposed to be doing here. It’s funny, because he had climbed out his window and nearly broken his neck doing so, just to come here and be here, with, of all people, Derek Hale. He knows they’re likely to have sex, but what else? 

Are they going to talk? Are they going to kiss? Are they going to sit together? 

Derek sits on the edge of his bed and looks at Stiles, who’s just sort of hovering over by the desk with one hand in his pocket and the other on his white claw, still unopened. “Do you not want that?” Derek points to the unopened drink, and Stiles starts like he had forgotten it as there. 

“Oh, uh –“ he hastily opens it and takes a sip. “Tastes like a cheerleader’s sweat.” 

Derek makes a face. “What?”

“Oh, it’s a uh. It’s a joke,” he explains, and then rubs the back of his neck. “Because you bring cheerleaders up here to, you know, and they always drink a white claw. So, it’s like…a joke.” 

Honest to god, Stiles is unsure of how to actually have a conversation with Derek Hale that isn’t them trading barbs or arguing. Maybe he’s overthinking it, because obviously they’ve talked in the past couple of months and not been mean to each other and also not been fighting, but it’s hard to do when he’s…thinking about it, so hard. Like he’s nervous. 

Derek doesn’t even give him a pity laugh. He just frowns and says, “you can do better than that.” They stand in silence some more, Stiles shifting from foot to foot. “Are you gonna come sit, or...?”

“Oh,” Stiles lurches forward and steps over a couple of Derek’s textbooks to make it to the bed, taking a seat on the edge right next to where Derek is. 

“Are you okay?” Derek asks, putting his beer down on the bed side table and turning his body, so he’s facing him head on, nearly. “You seem quiet.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he clears his throat, but Derek keeps staring at him like he knows there’s more that Stiles should be saying – so Stiles sighs and waves his free hand in the air a bit. “Just…I don’t really know how to act.” 

“How to act? Like yourself,” the duh is unspoken, but heard all the same. 

“I mean, with you.”

“I’m not following.”

“I mean – if we’re not going to fight and we’re not going to be shitty to each other, then what am I supposed to do?” He looks away, to the window where nothing but darkness sits, and can’t look Derek in the face. 

“You’re overthinking this again,” he shakes his head and seems amused, which is not out of character. “You overthink everything. I brought you here to have sex, not have some deep intellectual conversation or sit around gabbing about our feelings or some bullshit.” 

Right, Stiles thinks, tracing the lip of his white claw with his index finger. It is just sex, like Derek always says, just sex, nothing more, nothing to think about, or linger on, or talk about. 

“Just because I said I’d only have sex with you and not anyone else doesn’t mean you have to go all homo on me.” 

Stiles rears his neck back and turns to face Derek with a frown practically pulling his entire face down, it’s so big. “Did you really just say _go all homo on you_?”

Derek waves his hand, like it’s not a big deal. “Locker room talk.”

“It’s not homo to have thoughts or feelings,” he snaps, and Derek’s eyes go all big like he’s surprised that Stiles is suddenly taking this so seriously. “Can you not say things like that? Or think them, even?”

“It’s how we talk in the –“

“This isn’t the fucking Beacon High locker room with Theo Raeken, it’s your bedroom with the _boy you’re fucking_.”

Derek picks his beer up again. Takes one one sip, glugs it down, practically finishes it in one go. Then he puts it back down and sucks in a big breath from his nose, closing his eyes for just a moment, like he has to gather up the words from his chest, or something. “Okay,” he says, opening his eyes back up. “You’re right. Let’s just – start over.” 

Stiles shifts uncomfortably, wondering if it was a big mistake to come here and perhaps an even bigger mistake to ever unblock Derek’s number in the first place. 

“Sorry, I say the wrong shit sometimes. I don’t have a lot of friends that are like you.” 

“Like me?”

“Yeah, you know,” he frowns and seems embarrassed by this, for some reason, even though Stiles is the person in this room between the two of them who doesn’t have any fucking friends. “People who aren’t…dicks.” 

Stiles is surprised. “I am a dick, you’ve always made it clear you think so.”

“No,” he argues, very serious, no lie. “You’re smart and sarcastic and you can be, I don’t know, maybe a little hot tempered, at times, but you’re not a fucking asshole.”

“Oh,” he lifts his eyebrows. 

“My friends are assholes and we. You know,” he finishes his beer once and for all and throws the empty can in the waste basket at the other end of the room, lands it perfectly. “We say shitty things. Like homo and – the other word. And bitch and stuff. You don’t say shit like that, because you’re smart. You know about politics and shit and you care about social issues.”

Stiles has never heard Derek say something like this before, so he isn’t sure what to say back for a long time. He sort of fumbles over his thoughts and can only think to say, “you’re a liberal,” in a baffled tone of voice. 

“Yeah, but I’m a dick. I don’t think before I speak,” he frowns and gets up, heading to get another beer. “You’re right. I can’t invite you over with the intent to get with you and then be homophobic.”

“Well, yeah,” Stiles scratches at his cheek and clears his throat, watching Derek’s back muscles move as he reaches in and grabs his next drink. “Is it really bad in there? The locker room.”

“It is 2020,” Derek smirks, as he stands back up and comes to the bed again, the fizzle and crack of his beer opening as he sits down, pressing his leg up against Stiles’. “So it’s not as bad as it could be. But it’s uh…yeah, it’s bad. If Theo wasn’t there, I think it’d be okay but. He is. So.”

“You always talk about him like he’s the ring leader or something,” Stiles narrows his eyes. “You’re the team captain, and he sucks at football.”

Derek snorts, so beer nearly comes out of his nose and he has to wipe the back of his hand over his lips. “Sucks is a strong word, but he’s definitely not great, you’re right.”

“So then how is it that he basically holds dominion over the politics of the team?” Like how when Theo calls Stiles a faggot, even though not everyone on the team thinks that’s okay or funny, no one calls him out on it, not a single person. 

“He just kind of…” he hems and haws, as though he’s trying to think of a good way to say it, a smarter way, maybe, to try and impress Stiles. “…he asserts himself. He’s a straight, white, rich boy and he’s the shortest one on the team and he knows he’s the weakest member. So he talks bigger than he is, to make up for it.” 

That makes sense. A Napoleon complex can really get a guy far, if he knows how to use it right. The meaner you are, the bigger a game you talk, the way you use your words as a weapon so you don’t have to actually fight anyone. It can be pretty powerful, especially among a group of boys who are already followers to begin with. 

“And it’s like, okay,” he puts his beer can down again, turns so his knee bumps into Stiles’. “I don’t wanna be a homophobe, I don’t wanna say sexist shit, but it’s like in there,” he points to his temple. “It’s just in my vocabulary because it’s said around me all the time and no one ever says hey, don’t say that. Not that I’m making excuses.” 

“I get it,” Stiles offers. “It’s like your yearbook.”

“It’s in bad taste,” he says this for the umpteenth time, looking away.

“You rank them,” he reminds Derek, who looks sheepish and shrugs – Stiles swears he sees the tips of his ears going pinkish-red with embarrassment. 

“Mentally. I don’t – I don’t like write it down.” 

“But you go back to the locker room and you tell all the boys, don’t you? That’s what matters.” 

Derek rubs at his jaw and laughs, and then abruptly stops, like he’s training himself to not find it funny. “Well, everyone else –“

“If everyone else jumped off a bridge.”

“Stilinski, you have no idea,” he looks up at his ceiling, at the posters on his walls, and breathes through his nose. “To be…just. To be able to watch everyone else do what they’re doing and to say you’ll do it differently because you know it’s – you know they’re wrong.” He pauses and sucks in a deep breath. “Coach says I’m a leader, and I don’t think I am. You are, but I’m not.” 

“Me?” Stiles’ voice goes all squeaky as he points to his own chest, because, uh, what? “I’m no leader, Derek, come on. I’m barely anyone.”

“Stiles,” he turns again, so their knees bump again, and then again as Stiles starts jiggling his leg. “You do whatever you want. You don’t care if people try to tell you that you’re wrong, because you know that you’re right, you – you – you’re smart. You know what to do. You know who you are when questioned. You know what you actually stand for. Me, I just…whatever the room says, that’s what I do.”

“I don’t think that’s true about you,” he argues, because as for the rest of that statement? All the shit about him? He can’t comment on that. He doesn’t know if he agrees, but Derek is so serious and Stiles honestly thinks this is the most he’s ever heard Derek talk at one time. “You’re team captain, obviously there’s something about you.”

“I’m big, and I’m fast,” he drinks, then stares at the can in his hand, tossing it from one set of fingers to the next. “I get the game. It’s all I know. That’s all I have, but I’m not smart and I’m not nice and I’m not a good person.” 

Stiles looks away. So many people feel the exact same way about him, and maybe all of those people who have said so to Stiles’ face have said the same to Derek’s. Maybe all this talk about how _yeah, he’s good at football but everything else about him is a steaming pile of shit_ , all the things people whisper about him when they think he’s out of ear shot, all the things Stiles might have said to him in the past – maybe all that is shit that Derek has internalized.

Christ, how many times does it take for someone to learn that they’re only good for one thing? 

Stiles can honestly say that he still doesn’t know Derek Hale very well, and he can also very honestly say that Derek has been an asshole to him. Many, many times before. He wonders if there is anyone, anyone out there, who knows him at all. 

If it’s lonely, to have no one see you for who you really are. 

“You know, you’re more than what you’re perceived as,” Stiles says, and Derek frowns and doesn’t say anything. “Even more than what you see in the mirror.” 

“Oh, yeah?” Derek seems to find this funny – but Stiles thinks he’s starting to learn when Derek smiles to be arrogant, or smiles because it’s funny, or smiles because he doesn’t want his real emotion to show across his face. “What do you see when you look at me?” 

Stiles drinks, looks at Derek. He’s got black hair, always styled unless he’s just taken his helmet off. He’s got hazel eyes and a firm jaw and a good nose, his front teeth are just a little too big, and he’s good looking. None of this is news. “I see someone who’s misunderstood and who has been misunderstood for so long that he’s decided to just become the person that people think he is because it’s easier than proving them wrong.” 

Derek polishes off his second beer and makes a face, like Stiles couldn’t be more wrong, like this whole thing is stupid anyway, but then he doesn’t argue it. He says nothing, just puts that empty can down on the bedside table and does not stand up to go get another one. After a long, long pause, where Stile sips his white claw and knows that he’s right, beyond any shadow of a doubt, Derek clears his throat. “I think there are parts of me that just are bad,” he shakes his head. “There’s just stuff in me that’s bad. It will always be bad.”

Stiles thinks of the untaken anti-depressants on the desk across the room. 

“For as many things about me that are good there are three that aren’t, kinda like…tar,” he puts his chin in his palm and stares out the window, eyes unblinking. “A tar pit. All the bad stuff is the pit, and everything good I try to do gets sucked down into it and it never makes a difference.” 

Stiles sucks in a shaky breath and thinks he is not very qualified to handle a statement like that, is nobody’s therapist, is only seventeen and can’t imagine what it would be like to feel something like that. He rubs at his face. “Derek, how much have you had to drink?” 

“Those two beers,” he says, and then, like he hadn’t just said all of that shit just seconds earlier, he smiles. Looks right at Stiles and smiles. “We can pretend I never said anything.” 

“You know, I’m not one of the pictures in your yearbook,” he points down to their feet, where somewhere down below lurks the book in question. “I’m not just some face that shows up here and you fuck once and mentally rank to tell all your little buddies about. You can tell me shit.” 

“Just earlier you said you didn’t know how to talk to me without fighting or being shitty.” 

Stiles nods. “Then I guess we have a lot of work to do.” He finishes his white claw and aims for the waste basket, misses just like last time, and Derek actually comments on it, this time. 

“You have the arm of a six year old girl.” 

“Not everyone’s on the football team, Derek Hale,” Stiles repeats, just so Derek will smile – Derek does smile, all teeth, the real one. Stiles knows how to call it, now. Stiles smiles back and Derek looks at him, seems to trace over Stiles’ face with his eyes for a moment, before reaching his index finger out and touching Stiles’ nose.

“You know when you smile your nose gets all scrunched,” he says, and Stiles pushes his finger away and blushes, for some reason. “I’m sorry I said all that shit before, it’s just…Isaac is my only real friend and he’s kind of a dumbass too and he’d never get it.”

Stiles wants to ask what about Jackson, or Clayton, or Steve, or any of the other football players or cheerleaders or admirers he has surrounding him on any given day? Smiling in his face and telling him how great he is, and then turning around and calling him an alcoholic, musing about why he can’t make a relationship work, honestly believing he’ll never be pro. 

“I’m kinda like a sounding board,” Stiles says, and then he turns and faces Derek all the way, pulling his legs up to sit criss cross on the bed. Derek sees this and follows suit, pulling his legs underneath himself and looking Stiles right in his face. “What do you see when you look at me?”

Derek smirks and narrows his eyes, turning his head from side to side as though he really has to think about it. “I see…” he starts, smile growing wider, “blowjob lips.”

Stiles reaches out and smacks Derek upside the head, which makes Derek laugh and take hold of Stiles’ wrist before he can do it again. He holds the wrist, looks Stiles in the eye, for seconds, until his eyes flick down to Stiles’ lips. Just quick, and then he’s back to looking at Stiles’ eyes again. 

Then, back to the lips. 

They’re dry, so Stiles bites down on his bottom one to moisten it just a little, drawing in a shaky breath. “Do you really find me attractive?” Stiles asks, and Derek blinks.

“I could have probably anyone I want, and I’m here with you, and you really think you have to fucking ask me that?” 

Stiles blushes, again, and it’s humiliating because he knows Derek can tell. 

“I think about ripping you apart all the time.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Stiles rolls his eyes. “Tell me something I don’t know.” 

Derek surges forward and kisses Stiles on the lips, hard. His hands come up and grab his face, taking it hostage, and the fingers are rough and tough and strong, like if he pressed hard enough he could crack Stiles’ skull open. Stiles kisses him back, their mouths working together, Derek pulling at Stiles’ collar until he’s even closer, their breaths intermingling harshly. 

Derek disconnects and says, “I would literally lick the locker room floor to get you to let me fuck you, right now.” 

Stiles laughs, high, incredulous, breathy. They kiss again, and when they pull apart he smirks. “I wouldn’t ask you to.” 

With one swift motion, Derek pulls his shirt off, and there’s the ship again. Stiles hadn’t necessarily believed Derek when he said that the ship had meant nothing, nothing at all, but he can’t imagine what secret meaning there is in the sails and masts of it. Maybe that Derek wishes he were a ship that could take to the ocean and disappear over the horizon, gone, like he was never here at all. 

Then, his hands tear Stiles’ shirt off of him, above his head, mussing his hair, and then they’re on Stiles’ belt buckle. Stiles leans back on his hands so Derek can tug them and his underwear down and off his legs, over his ankles, down to the floor with a plop. Stiles feels self conscious, just for a moment like he always does whenever Derek gets him naked and is looking at him like this, but Derek seems to only like what he sees, kissing him hard and biting his neck, undoing his own pants and shucking them off like they’re a nuisance to him. 

“I’m going to find that spot inside you,” he growls, right against Stiles’ mouth, down his neck, up his jawline. “Make you say my name.” 

Stiles pants and reaches out, gripping onto Derek’s arm for something to hold onto. “I – I don’t know if it…”

“What?” Derek pulls away to look him in his face. “Exists?”

“Well, obviously the prostate exists, but,” he shrugs. “It’s probably not that great.”

Like this is some weird gauntlet Stiles has thrown his way, a challenge for him to accept, Derek grins and reaches for the pillow where the lube is buried. He fishes it out and puts his hand on Stiles’ hip, using it to push him up and onto his side instead of lying on his back.

Derek lies down behind him, on his side too, so his dick bounces against Stiles’ bare skin. Fingers prod, push inside, and Derek’s mouth works along his neck. Kisses, kisses, sucks, licks, and Stiles shudders, canting his hips back into Derek’s touch. He reaches his free hand up and puts his fingers to Stiles’ mouth, pushes one inside, and Stiles figures he should…suck it. Guesses that’s what Derek wants him to do, so he does, and Derek’s eyes go all dark and intense.

He’s gross, so he says, “I knew that mouth had to be good for something other than smartass comments.” 

Stiles spits Derek’s finger out. “Don’t get any ideas.”

“Stilinski, if you had any clue of the ideas I have for what I want to do to you,” he pulls his fingers out, lines his dick up and pushes, so the head slips right in, “you’d do a lot more than blush.” 

Derek goes all the way in, as deep as he can, and uses Stiles’ hip to fuck in and out. Stiles bites his lip and presses back into it, because even though it’s not the orgasmic unbelievable feeling they always act like it is in porn, it’s still good. Derek angles a bit, up, and fucks that way – then, he presses deeper. 

“You’re seriously looking for it?”

“It’s not the same as a clit, you know,” he grunts. “I can see that, with my own eyes. I can’t see this. I’m playing a guessing game.” 

Stiles lets Derek fuck him up, and then circle his dick around as best as he can. 

“God, it’s like Where’s Waldo.”

“How do you know it hasn’t already happened and I just haven’t reacted?”

Derek pauses and makes a face. “I’ll be able to tell.” 

As he pulls out to get ready to push back in, Stile opens his mouth to make another comment, but his voice cuts off, his body tightens up, fingers scrabbling over the sheets and grabbing at one of Derek’s pillows because…whoa. 

“Aha,” Derek says, and then pushes against it, hard. Stiles moans, the loudest he ever has before in his life, and smacks his hand down on the pillow. “There we go.”

He hits that spot, deep inside him, at just the right angle, and Stiles sees white. Clear white, his vision going foggy – he’s cross eyed with how hot the pleasure is, unlike anything he’s ever felt before in his life. Oh yeah – he’s definitely fucking gay. 

“Derek, it’s too much,” he moans, whines, reaching back as if to try and stop the waves from hitting him again. “Derek, I – I –“

“I told you,” he says, arrogant and pompous and Stiles wants him to just…break him in half. He squirms and Derek pants, pulling Stiles’ body flush against his, his dick all the way deep in him, brushing up against that spot that has him shaking. Derek uses his hips to circle around it, probably smirking again for all Stiles knows, and it just…does him in.

He comes untouched, shooting so far he nearly gets himself in the face, his entire body going static. “Oh, my god,” he says, and Derek freezes behind him, looking. He looks at the come on his sheets and Stiles’ face, his body, and licks his lips. 

“You just came from my cock,” he says, like Stiles wasn’t there. 

“Uh…” Stiles grunts and puts his hands on his face. Christ, almighty, he’s gay. 

With that, Derek pistons in and out of him like a fucking crazy person, fingers digging into his hips so hard they’ll bruise, like they always do whenever Derek fucks him. It’s like his body just wants those impressions to stay there, forever, never leave, always have Derek on him. He comes, stuttering and shaking before he pulls out and flips over, to lie on his back and stare at the ceiling. 

Stiles turns over, too, on his back. The ceiling is dark blue. The light above their heads is on, glowing, so Stiles has to squint and look away. 

“I’m gay,” Stiles says, and Derek turns to look at him.

“I know,” he pats Stiles on the belly, once, twice, and then leaves his hand there, almost possessively. “It’s kind of obvious.” 

“Is it?” He pants and covers his eyes with his hands, feeling like jelly. God, he’s never come that hard before in his life. “That’s why they call me a faggot.”

“It’s the blowjob lips, man. I’m telling you.” 

“Ha,” Stiles laughs, kind of, but it’s more like an exhalation of breath and a sigh and a deep longing to get fucked again, all wrapped into one.

Derek sits up and rubs his eyes, reaching over Stiles’ spent body to grab at his phone on his nightstand. “It’s past two,” he says, and Stiles frowns. “You wanna stay here?”

“Oh, I can’t even think about that. My dad would kill me,” he’s sad about it, though. Like he wants to sleep in Derek’s bed and be with him all night long, which is a crazy thought, totally nutso, out of the question. He sits up and starts pecking around the room for his clothes, slowly, like he’s made of jelly. 

“I’ll drive you home,” Derek says, grabbing a random shirt from the floor and throwing it over his head. 

“Thanks,” Stiles murmurs, sliding his pants up his hips, buttoning them. “Uh – and thanks for the…” he trails off, looking down at his feet as he puts his shirt on. 

“Best orgasm of your life? No problem.” 

They go downstairs, through the house, silent. No lights, no voices, like they’re here alone. In the car, Derek is quiet and so is Stiles, but it’s not the uncomfortable silence from before. It’s different. Being with someone and knowing you don’t have to say anything, because not every silence needs to be filled. Just being. 

Derek pulls over to the side of the road outside of Stiles’ house and puts it in park, turning to look right at him. “You’re coming to the game after break, right?”

“Another one? Already?”

Derek smiles. “Yeah, all season long there are more games, if you can believe it.” 

Stiles is hesitant, because the game is on the Friday after break and there will be another party, and Stiles and Derek haven’t exactly had the best luck with that thus far. But he can’t say no, because Derek wants him to be there, Stiles knows, even if Derek can’t fully verbalize that. “Okay, yes, sure.”


	6. Losing

“You want to go to another one?” Scott hollers at him from across the lunch table at school the following Monday, reaching up to mime rubbing at his ears, making a squeaky sponge sound as he does so. “Am I really hearing this right now?”

Stiles bites into his cold pizza and shrugs. 

“After what happened last time?” 

“What happened last time?” Allison asks, and then Scott and Stiles share a look. Honestly, Stiles is surprised – he would’ve thought that Scott tells Allison everything, but then, maybe there’s an embargo on things that specifically concern Stiles. 

“Well,” Scott starts, and Stiles frowns and has another bite to give him time to think about how to answer that. 

“I got in a bit of an argument with Derek Hale.”

Scott gives him a look, like that is not the full story, not even close, and that’s just concerning the bit of it that Scott even knows about. “He was crying on the front porch while we waited for the Uber.”

This seems to make Allison aghast – she pauses in the middle of dunking her pretzel in hummus, mouth opening. “Derek Hale made you cry?” She looks between the two boys as though she’s waiting for one of them to deny it. Neither of them do. “He’s never made you cry before. He must’ve done something pretty terrible.” 

She waits for an explanation. Scott pointedly starts staring down at his carrots like there’s something fascinating about them, and Stiles keeps eating his pizza, bite by bite. No answer ever comes. 

“What was it?” She presses. 

Scott does not push for information; he just blinks and looks right at Stiles to see what he’s going to say to this. If he’s going to decide that today is the day that he will crack, finally break down and admit to his friends what’s really been going on. But Stiles eats, and shrugs, and wipes a napkin over his mouth. “It was just the usual,” he explains, and Allison seems confused. She looks to Scott for answers.

He has none, so he makes a don’t look at me face and bites into a carrot. 

“I just wanna go to the game,” he says, putting his pizza down. “It’s not a big deal.” 

“Then I assume you’re going to want to go to the party after,” Scott says, like Stiles could not possibly want to do this, not even a little bit. 

But, Stiles nods. “Yeah, I do.”

“I don’t think that this is a good –“ Scott starts saying, but then Allison talks over him, effectively cutting him off. 

“Then we’ll just have to avoid Derek Hale, won’t we?”

“At the _football game_?” Scott says this like it’s ludicrous, impossible, you can’t avoid Derek Hale on his own turf, in his own domain. It isn’t done. 

“I don’t think it’s a problem,” Allison says, and Scott seems irritated. He knows something is weird with this, he knows that there is more to this than anyone is willing to admit, but he can’t for the life of him put his finger on it. 

Stiles is ashamed, because he knows he’s gay. He’s sure of it, now, and still Scott does not know. Is grasping at straws trying to figure it out, and will never come to this conclusion, because Stiles will not tell him. Across the cafeteria, Derek is eating his own cold slice of pizza because they had eaten it together in his bedroom the night before, and Derek had sent Stiles away with half of the leftovers. 

No one will put two and two together. 

“Okay, fine,” Scott agrees. He is upset. 

“I’m just trying to get more school involved. Make some more friends,” he explains, and Scott doesn’t even look at him. This lie is becoming burdensome, but what is he supposed to do? Stand up on this lunch table and announce to everyone that he and Derek are fucking each other? 

When the day arrives for the game, Scott and Stiles seem to be on thin ice. They ride together with Allison in the front and Scott in the back, and Scott is silent the whole ride over. Not a word, even as Allison chatters and engages with Stiles, turns on the radio to fill the silence, shoots furtive glances in Scott’s direction, Scott says not a single fucking word. 

As they arrive, Scott practically leaps out of the backseat and takes Allison’s hand, dragging her off likely to go find Isaac. Who is likely to become Scott’s new defacto best friend, because he, at least, does not seem to be a liar. Or if he is, he’s a much better one than even Stiles is. 

Stiles follows their retreating backs, stuffing his hands into the pocket of his debate team sweatshirt, and thinks he really oughta get himself some football related merch if he’s going to keep coming to these god damn things .

Is he going to keep coming to these god damn things? Are he and Derek going to keep doing this? It isn’t like he has anyone to talk to about it, so the questions go unanswered, and he follows Allison and Scott to a spot on the bleachers. 

The usual fanfare occurs, the cheerleaders leaping around and the crowd going nuts – but tonight, it rains. This isn’t too big of a deal, since rain was in the forecast and most people had prepared. Ponchos come out and umbrellas and jackets, Stiles himself hiding under Allison’s pink umbrella as Derek scans the crowd and finds Stiles.

He smiles, then ducks into his helmet to hide it, just like last time. 

Rain or shine, the show must go on. Stiles kind of expects to see more of the same; Derek being fast, Isaac catching touchdown passes, everyone going psycho, the other team losing. Derek is fast and Isaac does catch a touchdown pass, but things start to go downhill at one point. 

Derek throws and it’s wonky, off, careening off to the sidelines to nothing and no one. His next throw is better, cleaner, but Isaac fumbles it and the crowd reacts; a long, disappointed exhalation, as the other team scores and takes the lead. Stiles watches as, at one point, Derek storms off the field and rips his helmet off, says _fuck_ , takes a long drink of water. He doesn’t look for Stiles in the crowd. 

There seems to be an argument between him and Coach, but it doesn’t last long – it fizzles out and ends with Coach patting him on the shoulders, Derek putting his helmet back on and running back onto the field with everyone else, ready to keep going. 

It’s slick and gross on the field, so he and everyone else is covered in mud, grass, their uniforms looking worse for wear. Derek gets his hands on the ball again and throws it.

It goes off, to the side, and Derek puts his hands on his hips as he watches it go. He hangs his head, scuffs at the field, and paces. 

They wind up losing the game, and it’s not that big of a deal. Whatever – you win some, you lose some. Derek had a bad night, and so did Isaac, and the other team took advantage of it. The crowd at large is a little beaten down because they sat out here in the rain just to watch their team lose, but that’s just sports. Stile guesses; after all, he wouldn’t really know. 

Scott says that he and Allison will be riding with Isaac to the party, which hurts Stiles’ feelings way more than it should, given the situation. Allison gives him an apologetic look like it’s out of her hands, and then they disappear into the crowd, leaving Stiles alone, getting rained on without Allison’s umbrella to protect him. 

The party tonight is at Jackson’s house again, so when Stiles pulls onto the street he knows where to park his Jeep and exactly which house it is. He gets inside and immediately pulls his hoody off and sniffles, seeing that other people have hung their own wet coats on the railing of the stairs to dry off, dripping puddles onto the ground. He lays his sweatshirt over the railing and swipes some of the rain water off of his face, making his way to the kitchen for a beer. 

He sits down on the same couch as last time and people are playing flip cup again. There are less people at this party, maybe deterred by the rain and the fact that they had lost, so the roar of people speaking and the music is dull, instead of at full throttle. He doesn’t see Scott and Allison, just a mish mash of faces he only kind of recognizes. 

He turns around and sees there are football players on the patio, but Derek is not among them. They stand under the awning out of the rain and smoke and drink and don’t look super thrilled, but not incredibly put out either. It’s just one game. 

Stiles pulls his phone out and fiddles with it for a few minutes. Some people say hello to him so he says hi back, exchanges pleasantries, but no one sticks around to hang out with him. At one point, Jackson goes walking past the couch to head out back with his teammates, so Stiles calls his name and stands up before he can second guess himself. 

“Yeah?” Jackson asks, clearly baffled as to why Stiles Stilinski would have anything to talk to him about. 

“Is Derek here?” He asks, and instead of getting the suspicious once over he might have expected in the wake of this question, Jackson actually sort of sighs.

“Oh, he’s probably moping upstairs,” he rolls his eyes and starts moving away from the conversation, shrugging his shoulders. “He’s a shit loser.” 

He goes out the sliding patio door and Stiles blinks at his back, turning to look at the stairs, littered with coats and puddles. As he makes his way up, he sees Scott and Allison at the little kitchen nook again, with Isaac, and he turns his head away, because that makes him feel bad. 

Upstairs, there’s hardly anyone. He moves through the hall and peeks into rooms as he goes – the bathroom is empty. The first bedroom has a couple making out. The second bedroom is empty, dark. 

It’s the third bedroom that he finds Derek in. It looks like a guest bedroom, no personal affects anywhere – just a bed and a side table with a lamp, glowing and illuminating Derek where he sits on the edge of the bed. He’s staring out the window, watching the rain.

Stiles moves inside and closes the door behind himself, but he figures he doesn’t need to lock it – no one is upstairs, anyway. He leaves it be and says, “hey,” to Derek’s back.

Derek turns, and he smiles a little thinly when he sees that it’s Stiles standing there. He’s got a bottle in his hand, the whole thing, Maker’s Mark. If he’s the only one who’s been drinking it, he’s already made quite the dent, so Stiles stiffens and wonders how this conversation is going to go. He moves further into the room and then sits down next to Derek, wringing his hands in between his spread legs and sighing through his nose. 

“Bad night, huh?”

Instead of directly answering that question, Derek takes another big sip and sort of hisses after he takes it, like it burns. Of course it does, it’s straight from the bottle. Still, he drinks more of it and just looks out the window, until he frowns and looks down at his hands, the bottle, Stiles’ shoes. “You are all wet,” he says, and Stiles gestures out the window. “Right.”

Stiles drums his fingers on his leg. “Jackson says you’re a shit loser.”

“Jackson should staple his fucking hands to his asshole,” Derek snaps, and Stiles has to resist laughing. He really, really should staple his hands to his asshole. “I don’t like losing, no.” 

Still, Stiles thinks – all this drama just because he lost a fucking high school football game? Yes, the game is important to him and this is a defining year for him in terms of getting into college and making it big, but…it’s just one game. People lose games. 

“You know, this is what my father used to drink,” Derek says, apropos of nothing as he swishes the liquid in the bottle around for emphasis. Stiles blinks, because Derek has never, never once since the man croaked, mentioned his father. He barely mentioned him before he died, either, so Stiles always figured it was just…not something he liked to talked about. “He used to drink it a lot.” 

“Oh,” Stiles nods. It would explain where the alcoholism comes from – or, if not really alcoholism, at least the need to drink so much that he’s fucking useless. 

“If he saw the way I fucked everything up tonight…” he trails off, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut. 

“It was just one game,” Stiles reasons, and Derek ignores him, shaking his head like Stiles doesn’t quite understand. 

“When I was a kid, if I fucked up like that,” he starts, lets it hang there for a moment. Stiles stares at the side of his face, his breath stuck in his throat. He can tell this sentence is not going to end well. “I knew I’d really be in for it when I got home.” Another big sip. “There’s no such thing as second best because second is a loser. You wanna be good, you have to work for it. You wanna be the best, you have to act like it.” 

Stiles swallows.

“Once when I dropped the ball that could’ve won my fucking – fifth grade team’s game,” he laughs, like it’s so ridiculous, because it was the fifth fucking grade and he was eleven years old, “he nearly broke my fucking arm.” 

Stiles clicks his tongue, maybe shock, maybe not. Maybe Stiles in the back of his mind always figured that Derek’s relationship with his father was rocky at best, even before he knew Derek at all, but maybe he also hadn’t quite expected it to be like … that. 

“He just wanted me to win,” he explains, like this makes his father exempt from any condemnation. “He’d have me run, and run, not fast enough, not good enough, again. He just wanted me to win.” 

“That sounds like –“

“I used to tell people the bruises and the black eyes were from you, so,” he laughs, like it’s funny, and it’s not, not even a little, “back then I was grateful you hated me so much, people didn’t ask questions beyond that.” A pause, Stiles silent and still and Derek staring out at the rain. “He just wanted me to be the best.” 

He looks Stiles right in the face, and he must see something there that is not…the casualness with which Derek is delivering this information. As though it’s just part of his life story, nothing to see here, not a big deal. He says, “oh, it wasn’t that bad. He didn’t usually go too far.”

“Derek,” Stiles says, even, like he’s talking to a spooked animal. “Hitting you even once is too far.” 

Derek shakes his head again, like Stiles will never get it, couldn’t possibly understand. “He made me good. If I hadn’t had that kind of discipline, who knows? I’m only good because of him.”

Stiles would beg to differ. Stiles would say that Derek is only deeply, deeply depressed because of him. Stiles would say that Derek is only the school drunk because of him. Stiles would say that Derek has deep, self-destructive tendencies because of him. That he has trauma and damage and maybe even PTSD, that makes him petrified of losing, terrified of coming home and getting beaten for it, forced to run and run and run with bruises and dislocated shoulders. 

“I’m going to be in the NFL because I had discipline,” he nods, sure of it. He tells himself this all the time, convincing himself that the damage was for something. The abuse meant something. If it didn’t, and he doesn’t make it, if he isn’t the best, then what is he? What’s he got?

Just damage. Nothing else. 

“I just can’t fuck it up, I can’t fuck it up.”

Stiles sits and breathes for a moment, because he needs to choose his words very carefully. In through his nose, out through his mouth. “Did your mother ever know?”

This, for whatever reason, is another thing that makes Derek laugh. “Oh, of course she knew, and she feels bad about it all now,” he waves his hand, like it doesn’t even matter. “So she puts me on drugs and throws money at me. Honestly, I think she can’t stand the sight of me because it makes her feel like shit,” he laughs again, as though it’s hilarious, just the funniest thing. 

“Christ,” Stiles puts his hand on Derek’s back. “Derek, that’s awful.” 

“It just toughened me up,” he waves this off. Drinks another huge sip. “It just makes me good.” 

Stiles keeps his hand on Derek’s back and sits there with him, watching the rain fall. “What makes you good is you,” he says. “You are what makes you good. You don’t…” his throat goes tight, because he feels so awful. “…he doesn’t deserve the credit.”

Derek puts the bottle down as though he’s finished with it, puts his hands down at his sides and he stares out the window. “I _am_ the tar pit,” he says, and Stiles meets his eyes. They’re wide, big in his head. “The one thing I’m good at, I’m good at because of the tar. It’s all I have and it’s –“ he clenches his fists, unclenches, and Stiles knows what he means. 

All he has is football, and so all he has is his trauma. It drags him down, and that’s not fair. 

For the first time in all their years of knowing each other, even back when they were kids, Stiles sees Derek cry. It’s silent, just tears streaming down his face that he angrily swipes at. Stiles rests his head on his shoulder and hugs his middle, saying nothing. There is nothing to say.

**

Stiles wakes up and knows immediately he is not at home. It’s too bright in this room, the windows too many and too big, and the bed is unfamiliar. He’s still fully dressed, his shoes still on and slightly damp from the rain last night – most notably, Derek is next to him. Full on passed out, snoring, drooling onto a pillow that does not belong to either of them.

He sits up. Says, “fuck.” 

Frantically, he reaches into his pocket for his phone and checks the notification screen, hoping beyond hope that no one has noticed he’s missing, his father left for work without checking his bedroom, Scott figures he got home okay…

Twelve missed calls from Scott, twenty-seven from dad. He freaks. 

“Derek, wake up,” he says, reaching over to shake him and shake him. He’s like a rock, out and dead to the world. The snoring stops and he groans, pushing Stiles’ hands off of him. 

“Fuck off, mom.”

“It’s not mom, it’s Stiles,” he snaps, and Derek groggily opens his eyes and squints blearily at the bright, early morning sun streaming across his face. “We fucking fell asleep and my dad is flipping and Scott is flipping and they’re going to come here and –“

The doorbell rings, and the blood drains clean out of Stiles’ face. This is not good. This is not good at all. As he stands from the bed, his mind whirs with an excuse. He has to come up with something, anything, pacing and pacing and pacing. He can hear footsteps descending the steps, likely Jackson fuming at being awoken hungover the day after a party and a lost game, and he puts his hands on his head and absolutely fucking freaks out. 

“Okay,” he says, while Derek sits up and clucks his tongue in his mouth, like he tastes something he doesn’t like. He looks fucking terrible, hungover, half dead, and Stiles doesn’t have time to deal with that. “I just – okay. Come on, get up, we have to,” he stops, readjusts. “No. Do not come out with me. We didn’t see each other. You fell asleep here and I – I – in another room, you didn’t even see me. I just was tired, and…okay.”

He leaves Derek sitting there blinking and rubbing his head, and goes out the door, shutting it gently behind himself. He can hear the definite timber of his father’s voice, recognizes the frantic lilt to it, then the higher, baffled response from Jackson, but not the words they’re saying. He goes to the stairs and starts descending, so he can hear the voices more clearly, sees his father standing there and peering into the house, taking in the sight of it. 

He had called Scott and asked where Stiles had been last night, and Scott must have said here, and now here he is, full uniform, hunting him down. 

The Sheriff does a double take when he sees his son coming down the steps, and Stiles recognizes the immediate loosening of his body. Because okay, there he is, not dead in a ditch, not kid napped, here, alive. As he grabs his hoody off of the bannister, his father goes through the second stage – injury probing. No bruises, no broken bones, no visible scars or blood. 

Then, the third stage. Anger. “What the hell are you doing?” He demands, angry, and Jackson looks put out. He’s in a bath robe, frowning. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Stiles makes it to the ground floor and he knows he’s a shit liar when it comes to his dad. But he will not be lying, just…mottling the truth. Which he excels at, actually. 

“Did you get drunk last night?” He is serious as all hell – Jackson does not care about this. He moseys his way down the hall to the kitchen, likely to drink a gallon of water and eat a pound of bacon, leaving Stiles and the Sheriff standing here. 

“I had one beer,” and this is the truth, and his dad can tell. As a man of the law, his father has never had any notion that Stiles would not be a normal teenager and drink at parties – but he still has rules. He doesn’t wanna know if Stiles drinks, but if he gets shitfaced, that’s a problem. So, Stiles has never been shitfaced. “I just – was really tired and I fell asleep in the guest room.”

His father taps his fingers on his utility belt and stares Stiles down. He’s searching for a crack in the story, a hidden agenda, a possible reason Stiles would have for lying. He takes in the full sight of him. It’s clear that Stile is clear eyed, not hungover at all, not covered in puke, not high on drugs. 

“Okay,” he sighs, rubs his face. “Okay. You scared the ever living hell out of me, kid.”

“I know,” he says.

“I wake up and you’re just not in your bed, like you hadn’t been home at all.”

“I’m sorry, I – I just fell asleep and I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s – it’s fine, just as long as you’re –“ he cuts off, mid sentence, his eyes going to something past Stiles’ head, up the steps. Stiles turns, and there’s Derek Hale.

He, on the other hand, looks like he’s been through hell and back. He descends the steps slow, eyes half shut, hair a fucking disaster like a rat’s nest on his head, clothes mussed, a glassy, listless set to him. He’s pale, like any moment he’ll puke everywhere, all over the floor, and he’s silent. 

“Derek Hale,” the Sheriff greets, while Stiles steps aside to make room for Derek to come down to the ground floor. Derek just looks at him, like he’s not impressed, not at all afraid to see the Sheriff standing there after a house party. 

He looks at Stiles, then at Stiles’ father. He is so fucking fucked. He says, “have either of you seen my fucking letterman jacket.”

Stiles looks away, to his dad, whose jaw is clamped shut. God, he wants to kill this kid, and it’s crazy, insane, out of this world, to see them standing here together. “Uh,” Stiles starts, and his dad looks at him, like _you’re really talking to this kid_? “Maybe Jackson knows.” Derek just stands there, looking at him. Stiles says, “he’s in the kitchen.”

It is a clear suggestion that Derek turn tail and get the fuck out of here before things get any worse, but he just stands there. Maybe if he walks anymore he’ll vomit. Stiles doesn’t know – all he knows is that if he keeps standing there, his dad is going to say something to him. Stiles does not know what. But it will not be good. 

“We should probably go, right, dad?” He moves forward, and Derek tracks him with his eyes. 

“Me, too,” he mutters, rubbing at his head. The letterman jacket is behind him, Stiles notices, hanging among a couple of other straggler jackets on the bannister of the steps. He turns, sees it, reaches out and grabs it like a sloth. He reaches into the pocket and produces his car keys, starts making his way past Stiles to get to the front door, bumping into Stiles’ shoulder as he goes.

The Sheriff tracks this movement like a hawk, and he doesn’t like it. He moves and steps right in Derek’s path – it’s funny, because he’s not as broad or big as Derek is, but it still stops Derek in his tracks. It’s the gun, most likely. “Hold on there, son,” he appraises him, head to toe. “You still drunk?”

Stiles palms his face. Probably, yes.

Derek glowers at him and says one of the top five worst things he could possibly say to the Sheriff. “What are you gonna do, breathalyze me?” He smirks, like the idea is stupid, like he’s a rich kid to whom the rules don’t apply, and the Sheriff does not like him. He will slap him with a DUI fast as lightning, he will give him an MIP, and he’ll do it with a smile on his fucking face. 

Stiles panics, because Derek is going to try to drive and the Sheriff is going to let him and then pull Derek over and breathalyze him and arrest him, and – he just fucking panics.

“I tried drugs last night,” he shouts, and both of them turn to look at him. “I – I experimented. With. Drugs.”

Derek takes this as his hint. He rubs his head and takes off down the hall, toward the kitchen, to find Jackson and bemoan his hangover, and the Sheriff just stands there staring at him. 

“So, can we go, and I’m in trouble?”

He gapes, eyes trailing after Derek, switching between that and Stiles again and again. “What drugs?” He demands, baffled.

“Uh – the bad one.” 

“Right,” he rubs his jaw. “Just – let’s go.” 

Stiles looks over his shoulder to see Derek vanishing into the kitchen, safe and sound for the time being, and he huffs out a sigh.

**

At home, Stiles sits on the couch and his dad sits down on the coffee table in front of him and examines him, close, cocking his head to the side and grabbing Stiles’ jaw to turn his son’s head left, and right. He’s looking at his pupils, his coloration, his arms.

He sits back and gives him a serious look. “Why do I think you didn’t do any drugs last night?” 

“You think too highly of me, but I’m a bad teen and I’m out of control.”

“Uh-huh,” the Sheriff crosses his arms over his chest and stares. He stares, and stares, searching for an answer. Stiles bears this with a frown, scratching at his cheek, feeling like a rat in a lab somewhere having tests run on him. “You know, I don’t think that you are. I think you were trying to protect Derek Hale from driving under the influence,” he taps his fingers on his opposite arm. “The thing I can’t seem to figure out is why.”

Stiles gives him a look. “Uh, because driving drunk could kill someone?”

“Uh-huh,” he repeats. He’s not buying it. He’s not that stupid. “You know, kid, the last I checked Derek was on your big enemies list. Now, you’re hanging out with him at parties and you’ve got his jacket up in your bedroom.” 

“I told you that was to ruin it,” he mumbles, not meeting his father’s eyes. 

“You know, Derek Hale is a bad type.”

“He’s just a dick, he’s not the devil.”

“Uh-huh.” A pause. “Go up to your room. You’re grounded, no video games.” 

Stiles sighs, but does not argue this. He practically runs up the steps just to get away from the interrogation, flinging his bedroom door open to hide behind it faster. He presses his back up against it and breathes out a sigh of relief, eyes up to the ceiling. Then, he runs to his bed and jumps on, fishing his phone out from his pocket and immediately checking it.

Derek Hale, 10:31 AM : I feel like you just saved me from a day in jail.  
Me, 11:45 AM : 100%. I’m in dad jail now, though. Xbox banishment. 

In testament to this, the Sheriff comes into his bedroom without a word and starts work on unplugging all the wires that connects it to his tv, pulling the console up and tucking it under his arm. He takes the lot and vanishes, shutting the door behind him. Stiles has always wondered where the secret xbox hiding spot is – probably in his bedroom closet, or the hall closet, underneath all the sheets and spare towels. 

Stiles immediately opens up Derek’s text thread as soon as he’s out of the room and watches as the three little dots appear, then vanish. They come back, then disappear again. Stiles wonders what it is he’s trying to say but isn’t sure how to. 

Derek Hale, 11:56 AM : Sorry about last night.  
Me, 11:58 AM : You don’t need to apologize. You know you can talk to me about stuff sober, too.  
Derek Hale, 12:05 PM : My poor little rich boy routine?   
Me, 12:07 PM : That’s not funny.  
Derek Hale, 12:10 PM : Let’s just forget about it. What will you do all day with no xbox?

**

At school on Monday, Scott is still angry with him. He’s mostly silent on the ride to school save for him crunching into his pop tart, and Stiles knows he’s trying to smoke him out, like Stiles is a fox in a hole. The longer he goes without speaking, the closer he thinks he’s getting to Stiles cracking and finally telling him the fucking truth.

But Stiles is resolute. They drive in quiet, and once the car is stopped and Stiles is parked, Scott is leaping out like the thing is on fire, already on his way to school without waiting for Stiles to grab his backpack from the backseat and get out of the car. He sighs and walks up alone, trudging and squinting into the early morning sun. 

Of all people, Heather Newman catches up to him and is smiling at him, pretty girl smile. She wants to fuck him again. “I heard you partied all night on Friday and your dad showed up and busted you,” she winks at him, like this is so cool and hot of him. Stiles looks ahead and frowns. 

“I fell asleep upstairs and he came and freaked out on me, yes,” he explains, and she smiles wider. 

“I never knew you were such a party animal,” she says, matching his stride perfectly even with her shorter legs. She’s one of the girls that gets thrown around in the air, so she’s small. Except for…well, you know. “You never seem to drink that much that I notice.”

“Well, I contain multitudes,” he tells her, meaning to sound like an obnoxious asshole to put her off. It does not work. She smiles and seems to think he’s sexy for saying this, and Stiles could honestly lose his mind. The desire to grab her, shake her, and shout _I’m gay_ into her face is strong. “Look, I’m nearly late.”

“Totally,” she says, and Stiles does not get how that’s an appropriate response. “See you later.”

He walks ahead and she peels off in another direction, perhaps to squeal with the other girls because she talked to Stiles, and really, Stiles does not get it. He is a nothing person. 

In he goes, and word has spread very quickly about how he’s a badass even though his dad is the Sheriff and ooh, ahhh, he got high on drugs and oooh, he doesn’t even care that the fuzz was after him. It’s fun, at first, but it gets old. The story spreads to, for example, Scott, who seems very angry about it. It’s out of Stiles’ character, after all, and Scott doesn’t know the full story, and this is just another peg on the god damn lite-brite in his brain that’s spelling out STILES IS GOING NUTS. 

He approaches Stiles in their shared Art class, sits down in his usual spot right next to him, and freaks out. “So you’re doing drugs and telling your dad to go fuck himself now, huh?”

Stiles blinks. “There is something seriously fucked with the way people spread information around this school. No, that didn’t happen.”

“Really?” He looks like he doesn’t even believe him, not at all, which isn’t fair – Stiles would never lie to him. Except… “Because that’s what everyone is saying happened!”

“The only two people who actually saw this even happen were Jackson and Derek Hale, and –“

“Derek Hale, again!” He shouts, so people are looking at him. At them, having this argument. This will be another story spreading around school by period’s end. “It seems like with every story you have lately, he’s in it, somehow!”

Stiles furtively glances around, how people are whispering, seeing this all happen right in front of them. “Scott, we can talk about this –“

“Ever since you guys stopped beating each other senseless, it’s like he won’t get out of your life!” He’s yelling, still, and Stiles palms his face. He should have seen this one coming. “Now you’re erratic, all over the place! I can barely get you to hang out with me, you’re crying randomly, you’re always with him!”

“I’m not with him, he’s –“ he stutters, and everyone is looking. “I don’t like Derek Hale.”

Scott rears his neck back. “I never said you _liked_ him,” he snaps, like Stiles is insane for saying this. He feels like he’s just exposed himself, everyone looking, Scott seeming baffled, and he panics. Again. 

He grabs his backpack off the ground and makes a break for it, leaving his sketchbook bare and empty behind. “Cutting class, now?” Scott calls at his retreating back, while Stiles runs out of the room just as the bell rings. He has never once in his life cut a class, and this does absolutely nothing to help his case.

The halls empty quickly, kids going off to their respective classes, and Stiles is by himself in no time, going full speed ahead towards the back doors at the end of this block. He pushes through them, and starts making his way toward the football field.

He knows practice is right now because he knows basically Derek’s entire schedule at this point, so he huffs it all the way there, across the field, where he finds Isaac stretching out among the rest. He scans faces, doesn’t see Derek. Isaac gets upright and looks at him, up and down. “Been hearing some crazy stuff about you today,” he starts, but Stiles cuts him off. 

“Have you seen Derek?” He demands, a little too loudly, and a couple of other guys turn their heads towards him. “I just uh – is Derek here right now?”

Isaac is just about to open his mouth, and then Theo is there, walking over with a smug smile on his face. 

“Why do you wanna know, faggot?” He asks, his face splitting into a big grin, shit eating, and Stiles grits his teeth and pretends it doesn’t bother him, like he always has to. “You trying to get in his –“

Abruptly, Derek appears. He materializes in his full uniform, huge, and he’s ripping his helmet off, vicious and quick as he tosses it across the field and starts moving towards Theo with no expression on his face. “Shut the fuck up,” Derek growls, using both hands to shove the smaller boy as hard as he can. Theo staggers back, and immediately, the rest of the team is descending on them like ants on a log. They’re saying _whoa, hey, stop_ , moving in like they’re going to pull both boys apart. 

Not quick enough – Theo is advancing on Derek, and Derek grabs him by his collar and hits him. It’s a good hit, because Stiles hears the crack and Theo hits the ground pretty much instantly, and then they’re being separated. It all seems to happen in the blink of an eye, and Isaac and Jackson are herding Derek away, having to use all their strength to get him away from the other one, because he’s trying to break loose. “I’m not going to put up with this fucking bullshit anymore!” He shouts, while Isaac and Jackson say a litany of _you gotta calm down, just take it down, just walk away_ , and Stiles steps back. 

He isn’t sure what to do. Theo is yelling at Derek from the ground and Derek is yelling back, and Stiles is standing there in the middle of it all with his backpack on, stuck frozen on the spot. 

Coach comes running over from the sidelines and starts yelling at all of them, waving his clipboard around and going haywire. “What’s all this?” He demands, and Derek finally breaks out of Jackson and Isaac’s hold, grunting. 

“I won’t play with him,” he says, pointing in Theo’s direction. “I won’t fucking play with him, I can’t even look at him –“

“Where’s this coming from?” Coach demands, clearly out of his element. 

Derek ignores this, turns around and starts going after Theo again. Isaac and Jackson lurch and grab him, pushing him back while Coach stands there and rubs his temples. He throws his clipboard on the ground and looks insane, he’s so fucking unhappy with these proceedings. “Halfway through the season and you decide you hate your teammates!”

“Not them,” Derek hisses. “Him. Singular.” 

With that final word, Derek is storming off the field. Stiles clutches his backpack straps and thinks he should go after him, starts working up to do just that, but then Coach is looking around and demanding to know what had happened. 

“Nothing,” Jackson says, and the other boys all murmur, while Theo watches Derek go, from down on the ground, his mouth dripping blood onto his uniform. “Stilinski showed up and asked where he was and then…” he trails off, because there’s really not much else to be said about it. 

But it puts the spotlight on him. Coach points at him, eyes deadset. “You,” he says, menacing, and Stiles seriously considers making a break for it. “Let’s go. Locker room, now.”

“I’m not on the team,” he says, as if it’s an argument. So coach takes him by his elbow and starts dragging him along, off of the field. Behind him, the other boys murmur and mutter and wonder what the fuck just happened, and Derek is nowhere to be found. Gone, in a cloud of anger. 

Stiles winds up sitting in a metal chair in Coach’s office where it smells like sweat and ass, with the man himself staring at him with a frown in his face. He’s got both hands down on his desk, and he does not look happy. Not one bit. “I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, but you are somehow the cause of this.” 

“I’m –“

“No speaking,” he interrupts, loud. “I speak. Okay?” 

Stiles swallows. Nods.

“Let me tell you something, Mr. Stilinski,” he points a finger out the window of his office, at the field, at nothing. “Derek Hale is this close. This close. To getting what he has worked his entire life for. This. Close. It’s a see saw, a pin drop, a god damn blade of grass.” This makes no sense, but Stiles nods like it does. “He is almost there, you got me? And bullshit like this, fighting on the field over whatever the hell the problem was? That’s all it takes for it to be done. Scouts don’t like drama, they don’t like a player who can’t get along with a team.”

“That’s more Theo’s fault than Derek’s,” Stiles says, and Coach snaps.

“I know that, you think I don’t know that? I know that! But do they? Will they? When all they hear is that Derek Hale has been fighting with his teammates? Do you think they’ll care about who started it?”

Stiles thinks, and then shakes his head no. 

“No, they won’t! So whatever this is,” he waggles his fingers at him, “needs to stop. He needs to be focused. He needs to be focused on the god damn game. Are we clear?” This is abruptly feeling more and more like High School Musical. It may as well be.

There’s no other acceptable answer other than Stiles nodding yes of course, duh, totally, absolutely. Coach sends him on his merry way, so Stiles immediately sets out to find where Derek is. He trails the locker room and doesn’t see him, the hallway outside, and he’s not there. 

He steps out the outside door to the locker room and sees Derek leaning up against the wall, seemingly waiting for Stiles to emerge. He blinks at Stiles, scratching the back of his neck and looking somewhat sheepish. “Hey,” he says, and Stiles smiles thinly at him and returns the greeting. 

“Lots of stories going around about old Stiles today,” he says, and Derek seems to know exactly what he’s talking about, because he doesn’t ask – he smirks. “Scott went apeshit on me about it in art so I…ditched and came to talk to you about it, and then, uh…”

“Yeah,” Derek says, and he looks out, to the field, where the team is still all just standing around because they don’t have either a captain or a coach to tell them what they should be doing. 

Stiles shifts from foot to foot. “Why’d you do that?” He asks, gesturing to the field. “You know, coach yelled at me that doing shit like that could fuck you over, and you had said the same thing to me before, and I – you know, I got it. So why would you…?”

Derek looks at his feet. At the sky. At anything but at Stiles’ face. He frowns and shakes his head. “Because I might be in love with you, and people can’t say shit like that about you. He can’t call you that fucking word, over my dead body.”

He spits, he’s that angry. Literally spits on the ground to the side and scuffs his feet on the concrete, while Stiles’ breath is caught in his throat, because Derek had just said… “you’re,” he starts, and then doesn’t finish. 

“I don’t know,” he says, shrugs. “I might be. All I know is, people can’t talk to you like that. I’ll fucking lose my mind.” 

Stiles is still, and then he moves to stands next to Derek, leaning his own back against the wall. He smiles, small, and then turns to face the field and breathe in through his nose. “Maybe I am too,” he says. “I don’t know.” 

Derek rubs at his knuckles, the hand that had punched Theo. “No one knows me like you,” he mumbles. “No one…no one would ever get to know me. Take the time. Or anything. That’s not nothing, not to me.” 

“Okay,” Stiles says, scuffs his foot. 

“I’m a fucking asshole,” he is sure of this as he says it, and Stiles nods, because he knows it’s true. Has had this tested, tried and true. “You treat me like I could…maybe not be. So, yeah,” he spits again. Stiles would be grossed out, but honestly, he doesn’t mind. 

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees. “Underneath the concrete and the spikes and the barbed wire, there’s a soft spot in you. I’ve seen it, so.”

Derek looks at him, looks and looks. “I’ll fucking kill that kid if he says anything like that to you again.” 

“He probably will, so maybe cool it,” he pats Derek on the shoulder. “You gotta get into Beacon and then the NFL and be…you know. The best.”

Derek sucks in a deep breath and smirks. “I’m waiting for that rejection letter to get mailed from Florida to Theo’s house, too.” 

“That’s the spirit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *


	7. Rising Smoke

Stiles taps his foot on the ground from his desk chair, while Scott sits on his bed, right across from him, his arms crossed, anger all over his face. He wants to leap up and go sicko mode again, Stiles is certain of this, and the only reason he’s maintaining composure is because he wants the truth. If he punches Stiles’ teeth out, he’ll never get it, so he waits and fumes silently. 

“Look,” Stiles starts, and then stops, because this is even harder than he imagined it would be. He looks at his feet and thinks of all the times he imagined Scott’s reaction. Of Scott being disgusted and pulling away and demanding to know if he ever jerked off while Scott was sleeping at their sleepovers, or if Stiles wanted to fuck him, or if he’ll just not want to be Stiles’ friend anymore.

It would be way too much, because Scott is Stiles’ only true friend. His brother, more or less, and it would be devastating. It’s his greatest fear, second only to telling his father. But one thing at a time. 

Stile knew as soon as Derek had said what he said yesterday that he had no choice; if he and Derek were going to be a thing, an actual thing, not just the idea of a thing, then he had to tell his best friend. If Derek wants to suck up all of Stiles’ spare time and spend every waking second texting him and being around him, then Scott needs to know about that. 

Plus, it was only a matter of time before Scott absolutely lost his shit, anyway. 

“I’m listening,” Scott snaps, and Stiles closes his eyes and chews on his thumb nail. 

“You know Seth,” he starts, and Scott nods like yes, of course. 

“The poetry kid.”

“The gay kid,” he corrects, and Scott nods like yes, one and the same. “Well,” he moves his hands in the air, at a loss for words from this point forward. “So, he’s gay.”

“We know.”

“So…” he scratches at his cheek and huffs and puffs and wills himself to just … say it. “I’m…I’m. I’m also. Gay.”

Scott unfurls his arms from their tight squeeze across his chest. Goes totally limp, his face going slack. Like he cannot believe it, and then he tilts his head, presenting his ear, a silent request for a repeat on that one.

Stiles clears his throat and says again, more clearly, “I am gay.”

Scott stands. Stiles is alarmed, because he honestly doesn’t know what he expects to happen – a punch in the face? A slap? For him to run for his life out of the door and never be seen again? But he approaches Stiles and he does not look angry, does not look like someone who’s going to lash out and hit someone else, and he leans down to wrap Stiles up in a big bear hug. 

It’s tight, intense, and he rocks Stiles back and forth like Stiles is his baby, or something. “Gay,” he says, like this is great news. Stiles can feel his body lessening in its tension, as the seconds go by and Scott keeps hugging him and hugging him. “Oh, Christ. I thought it was drugs.”

“Yeah, I guess gay is better than that,” his voice is muffled by Scott’s chest, until Scott pulls away and leans back on his haunches, then crouches down to get at Stiles’ eye level. 

“Gay,” he repeats, and Stiles nods. “How – how long have you…?”

“Oh, that’s a hard question,” he laughs, kinda forced, shrugging his shoulders. “I…you know. I had thoughts and feelings about it, but. Really recently it just…I just knew.”

“The sex with Lydia was that bad, huh?”

“It was not about the sex with Lydia,” he insists, because if that rumor starts going around there will be hell to pay, absolute fucking hell for all of them. “I just. Knew. For a long time I tried to hide it or pretend it wasn’t me, but. It is.”

Scott looks at him and frowns. He says, “have I ever said or done anything that made you think I would be, like, not okay with it?”

“No,” he says, immediate, because that’s the truth. Scott has never once said something anti-gay, never once said the f-slur, never once made a comment about Seth or any other gay person he’s ever encountered. “It was all in my head. I just built it up for so long, and I felt like…I don’t know.”

Scott nods, but he probably doesn’t get it, and that’s okay. “So that’s why you’ve been acting so weird lately?”

“Well, yeah, and there’s just…one more thing I gotta tell you,” he confesses, and then before the words are even completely out of Stiles’ mouth, Scott is leaping up.

“You have a secret boyfriend,” he says, and Stiles plasters a smile onto his face to really skew this news to the positive end of the spectrum.

“Yup,” Stiles nods, big smile on. “Yeah, I sure do. I have a secret boyfriend. He goes to Beacon Hills.”

“Do I know him?” Scott demands, nearly vibrating with excitement. 

“You bet,” Stiles keeps that big smile on his face. “You sure do, buddy. He’s an athlete.”

“Basketball?”

“Football,” he corrects, and Scott sucks in a big breath and that’s the moment Stiles thinks he’ll get it, but he doesn’t. 

“Is Theo secretly gay?” He puts his hands to his face, like he can’t believe it, and Stiles nips that in the bud as fast as possible. 

“No, not Theo, it’s –“

“It’s Brian. I know it is, it’s –“

“No,” Stiles shakes his head, and Scott looks pensive, like he’s going through his mental Rolodex of football players’ names, trying to think which ones seem gay to him. 

He thinks. Stiles clears his throat and waits, because he thinks if Scott gets there on his own it won’t be as bad as him having to hear it out loud. “Jackson,” he offers, and Stiles makes a face and shakes his head. “Oh it’s not…it’s not Isaac, is it…?”

“No, but – but why would it be bad if it were?”

“I don’t know. My two best friends, dating, it’d be weird,” he makes a face. “Like, if you broke up whose side am I on?”

“Mine, obviously.”

Scott seems unsure, but he nods. “I guess it would depend.”

“You know, it doesn’t matter, because it’s not Isaac.”

“Well, who is it?” He demands, thrusting his arms out. 

Stiles sits and stares at him, putting his hands down on his legs. He blinks, and Scott stares. Stiles nods his head, because he knows. Deep down, he knows who it is. 

Scott laughs. “You’re messing with me,” he commands, because of course Stiles is. No way he’s not. He is fucking around, plain and simple. Stiles just sits there and shakes his head, and Scott laughs some more, almost hysterical. “No,” he says, and Stiles nods. “Nope, no.”

“We have been having a relationship for –“

“Nope!” Scott shouts.

“And we just kind of fell into it –“

“Absolutely not!”

“We’re just figuring it out and we’re –“

“I will jump out that god damn window, Stiles Stilinski!” 

Stiles palms his face. “So, huge life-altering revelation about me is nothing – but me and Derek Hale fucking, that’s where you draw the line?”

Scott stares at him, his whole face going crazy, his body locking down. “There hasn’t been any…” he trails off, shaking his head like it couldn’t be. 

With a nod of his head, Stiles says, “there really has been.”

“I…” Scott closes his eyes and sucks in a deep breath, almost like he’s powering up, getting all the air in him, inflating like a balloon, “…will rip his arms from his body and beat him with them.”

“Okay,” Stiles says, holding his hands out as if to try and placate him. “I know this is a shock, because we spent so long hating each other, but we started…you know. We couldn’t beat up each other up anymore,” Scott starts pacing, shaking his head, like he’s trying to erase this truth from his mind altogether, “and I was right smack dab in the middle of my sexuality crisis and so we…like hate-sex-“

“Oh, god!”

“And then it wasn’t hate anymore and it was…and we…just.”

Scott stops at the window and stares out, like he’s really considering leaping. Jumping through the glass, making a run for it, ending this nightmare. “Why him? Stiles, he’s – I mean, he’s. Stiles.”

“…yeah,” Stiles agrees.

“It’s not just about how you two hated each other because I guess, like, in some weird way it does make sense that…ugh, you know,” he shakes his head and looks grossed out beyond belief, “…but it’s him. Just him. Who he is. He’s a fucking asshole.”

“He is,” Stiles agrees, “but he’s not just a fucking asshole. You don’t know him.”

“I know he’s got an alcohol problem, I know he’s got mental health issues, I know that he’s a fucking psycho,” he spits all these out, and Stiles can’t argue any of them, so he just nods along. Scott seems perturbed that none of these things seem to bother Stiles, not in the least, so he keeps going. “He’s arrogant, he’s a womanizer, he’s got weird daddy issues, and mommy issues too, he’s…Stiles?”

Stiles shrugs, because he has no answer. “It is what it is,” he says, and Scott rubs his face and looks depressed over it. “We just…”

“Okay,” Scott sighs. “Okay. Are you uh…are you telling everyone, or?”

“No, we can’t. We can’t tell everyone, just you. Not even my dad, not even Allison.”

“Oh, yikes,” he frowns. “Big secret to keep from Allison. Of course I will obviously but uh…why?”

“He wants to be in the NFL,” he explains, and Scott looks at him like he needn’t explain anymore. That’s all the information he needs to know he needs to keep his mouth shut, no questions asked. It makes Stiles sad, when he lingers on the thought for too long, so he doesn’t. Linger, that is. 

“God, I hate that guy,” Scott says with finality, shaking his head.

**

Stiles doesn’t expect Derek to start acting any differently just because he’s admitted that he doesn’t hate Stiles anymore. Even though that’s not technically what he said; what he technically said was that he maybe, just maybe, might be and only might be, in love with Stiles. Stiles had only technically said that maybe he might be feeling the same way – and there are way too many possibilities on the other sides of those maybe’s and might’s. Stiles thinks that it’s enough to know that Derek doesn’t hate him, and he doesn’t really need anything else. Or at least, he won’t spend time lingering on whether or not he does need anything else.

He had said to Scott that Derek was his secret boyfriend if only because it was the easiest label to use to get Scott to see what their relationship was. He would never, not in a billion gazillion years, call Derek his boyfriend to his face. 

So, when Derek comes over to Stiles’ house, using the front door for the first time, he doesn’t kiss Stiles on the mouth to greet him like they do on TV. He doesn’t take hold of Stiles’ hand or say that he had missed him or even really look at him any differently than usual. He just steps inside, hangs his coat on the nearest available hook, and stuffs his hands into his pockets. 

“Your house is okay,” he is gruff when he says this. Like he isn’t completely sure what he’s supposed to do in this situation, as though since he’s not climbing in through the window like a prowler he’s expected to behave a certain way – like a normal person, and he might not be very great at that. There’s no mansion here, no crowd screaming his name, nowhere to hide. 

Stiles looks around. He’s got a staircase and a small hall that leads to a kitchen and a bathroom, a living room right where they stand. No grand foyer, no marble, no chandeliers. “It’s not the Versailles you’re accustomed to.” 

Derek shrugs, looking around. The old couch with blankets hanging off the back, the coffee table with a half drank mug sitting where his father had left it and mail and DVD rentals, a bookshelf full of blu-rays and pictures frames. “Versailles gets pretty old.” 

Stiles doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just gestures for Derek to follow him to the couch, where they both plop down. Derek notices the Christmas tree in the corner, a handful of presents already tucked neatly underneath it. He stares at it for far longer than seems necessary, so Stiles raises an eyebrow as he gets the television turned on. “Don’t tell me you guys don’t celebrate Christmas, either.”

“Of course we do,” he gets a wry smile on his face as he turns to meet Stiles’ eyes, “she loves to buy us off.”

“You think you’re getting anything good this year?”

Derek leans back into the couch and gets comfortable, shifting around a little. “I didn’t ask for anything, so who knows?” He scratches at his knee and stares at the tree some more. Stiles imagines the tree in Derek’s house reaches the ceiling, ten feet tall, overflowing with sparkles and lights and more presents than anyone would ever know what to do with that his mother likely makes her secretary and assistants go out and buy and wrap for her. “What about you?”

He crosses his fingers. “Luck be a new pack of socks. God knows I need them.” 

This makes Derek laugh, his quick, genuine laugh that isn’t mean or nasty or sarcastic. Stiles clicks through the titles on Netflix and then he realizes he cannot fathom, not for one single second, what Derek will be interested in watching. He has never once asked him what he likes or what he does in his spare time that isn’t football or having sex or drinking. This makes him blink, as he goes through the tiles and Derek says nothing, no indication of what he’d like to see. 

So, Stiles puts down the remote and turns his body a little, to face him head on. “What kind of music do you like?” 

Derek blinks at him. “Any kind, I guess.”

“People always say that.”

“I just mean there’s no specific genre.”

“Well, what’s your favorite band?”

Derek thinks about this for a moment, the answer not immediately coming to him like it probably would for almost any other living person. “Maroon 5.”

“You’re fucking with me.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, snorting. He’s looking at the Christmas tree again and Stiles wonders what the hell is up with that, but doesn’t probe. “I just have work-out playlists. I don’t just sit and listen to music, generally.” 

“Oh,” Stiles leans back into the couch, biting his lip. That makes sense. “So, like, dubstep.” 

“Stuff like that.”

“Sounds pretty bad, Derek.” 

“I suppose you’re a connoisseur of the arts, then,” his sarcasm is back, but again, not mean. “Music, books, movies are all things you have time for.” 

“Well, yeah,” he clears his throat and scratches his cheek, feeling a bit sheepish. “I haven’t always had many friends or much of a social life, so…” when Derek doesn’t say anything, he keeps talking. “Plus, it’s not like I was on the football team trying to make it big. I guess when you know what you want to do, you don’t have a lot of time for…whatever.” 

Derek drums his fingers on his leg and seems to not have very much to say back to that. Stiles changes trajectories, clearing his throat. “Well, do you have any ideas of what you wanna watch?”

He goes back to clicking through the titles and makes a point of skirting quickly past the Aaron Hernandez documentary, hopefully fast enough that Derek barely sees it there. “You’d be better at picking than I would be.”

“Right, because I’m the connoisseur of the arts.” He snorts, and Derek nods like yup, that’s it. “You know, some people would be pretty surprised to know that you use words like connoisseur.”

“Because of the CTE.”

“Uh, because popular opinion has it at you being a complete dumbass,” Stiles taps his index finger to his temple, smirking, “I know better.” 

“You may be the only one,” Derek doesn’t say shit like this to fish for sympathy or compliments – he says things like this very clinically, the way doctors speak about torn ligaments or diabetes. Matter of fact, to the point, just the truth. “You didn’t always know that.”

Ignoring that, Stiles puts the remote down again and turns to face him once more. Derek looks right at him, and Stiles looks right back. Their bodies are touching. “If you’re such a not-idiot, why aren’t you doing better in school?”

Derek shrugs, lazy. “Seems like a non-issue. I do well enough to pass, I don’t waste all my time studying. I have other things to do.” 

“Drinking, girls.”

Derek reaches out and grabs Stiles’ jaw, not particularly hard – just his thumb pressing against one cheek, two fingers pressing against the other. “You have such a fucking smartass mouth,” he says, like he thinks it’s annoying and endearing at the same time. “You say shit sometimes and I want to put something in it.” 

Stiles smirks, Derek’s hand still on his face. “Like your fist.” 

“No,” he is serious as all hell when he says this, almost angry – as though the sheer idea of putting hands on Stiles that way again makes his blood boil. To think of how he’s hurt Stiles in the past might drive him crazy, now. “You know what I mean.” 

“Oh?”

“Did you invite me over here to irritate me?” Derek pulls his hand off of Stiles’ face, letting it drop down to rest in Stiles’ lap, instead. “Are we even going to watch anything?”

“Well, actually, I did invite you over to irritate you,” he admits, clearing his throat as he looks down to fiddle with a loose thread on his jeans. “I actually have something to tell you.”

Derek is quiet for a moment, watching as Stiles pulls and tugs at that thread just for something to do with his hands. Then, he says, “what is it?”

“Well, you have to promise you won’t get mad first.”

“Is it something that’s going to make me mad?” 

“Um…” Stiles smiles, a nervous habit, as he looks up to meet Derek’s eye. “I don’t exactly know what your reaction will precisely be.”

“I will not get mad.”

Stiles has seen first hand, many many many times, Derek angry. It’s not exactly the funnest, most enjoyable thing on the face of the planet. So, he sucks in a deep breath and knows that Derek can’t actually promise to not be angry because his reaction is his reaction either way. “Well,” he starts, goes back to pulling on that thread again. “I kinda told Scott. About…you and I.”

Derek looks at him and seems to be waiting for a punch line or further explanation. Stiles keeps talking. 

“He just – you know. It was pretty clear to him that something was going on and even though he never could’ve in a million years guessed exactly what it was, he knew it had to do with you and he was freaking out about it so I just had to tell him, I had no choice. Especially after, you know. Well, you said all that shit the other day so it’s like we’re not just fucking and it’s like – Christ, I don’t know what it’s like. I just figured.”

Derek may have just been sitting there waiting for Stiles to tire himself out, because his face has no discernible expression. He’s just listening and he doesn’t seem angry or sad or…happy, either. Just kind of average. The information does not shock him or send him into a rage, at least. “Why would you think I’d get angry about that?”

“Just – Lydia and Scott both know now. And, like, your whole thing is about not getting found out. Right?”

Derek is looking at the Christmas tree again. He seems pensive, like he’s turning over everything in his head again and again, trying to decide what he thinks or feels about it. “It would not be great if it got out,” he agrees. “I would have to deny it and act like I don’t know you and you’d probably get your fucking feelings hurt.” 

“I would not get my fucking feelings hurt,” he scoffs. He would absolutely not get his feelings hurt. Not even a little bit. Not at all. Nope. It would be just fine. “I guess you could just punch me in the face again and everyone would figure it couldn’t possibly be –“

“Can you stop saying shit like that?” The interruption is abrupt and sharp, Derek’s voice going up. “About me hitting you?”

“I’m joking,” he defends, putting his hands up as if in surrender. 

“I’m not laughing.” He is serious as a heart attack. “I fucking went bananas on Raeken for saying something shitty about you, how do you think it makes me feel to know I’ve ever hit you before? Let alone how it would feel to do that again. I’d sooner chew glass.” 

“Well, would you sooner shit all over your hopes and dreams?” Stiles snaps back, crossing his arms over his chest. “Would you sooner kiss a multi-million dollar contract goodbye? Would you sooner give up everything you’ve worked toward your entire life? Because maybe that’s what you’d be doing if people ever found out about you and me.” 

“So, what? Are you _asking me_ to hit you if people ever did find out?”

Stiles isn’t sure what he’s doing – why their conversation has suddenly turned so negative or how they even got to this point. He isn’t sure about anything, so he opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, but nothing comes out. “It’s not fair,” is what he winds up saying, and Derek knows what he means, doesn’t ask for clarification. Just absorbs that, that it’s not fair, that it’s not fucking fair. 

Derek runs his thumb over his mouth and sighs through his nose, long and loud. “You would get your fucking feelings hurt,” he repeats, voice low, and Stiles doesn’t bother trying to deny it this time. He looks away and imagines how it would feel for Derek to look at him like he’s nobody, nothing, doesn’t exist, to laugh and say how ridiculous the idea of him having anything to do with Stiles in that way is, and here, come and look at my disgusting yearbook full of girls I’ve fucked, I’m not gay, no way. “I’m not angry you told Scott. He’d never tell anyone, if only for your sake.”

“Okay,” Stiles’ voice is quiet and small, and he doesn’t look Derek in the face. “I just wanted you to know.”

A long pause. They sit in silence, Stiles with his arms crossed protectively over his chest, Derek just sitting there with his fists clenching and unclenching on his knees, as though he’s got imaginary stress balls in his hands. 

“I would never, no matter what happened, ever hit you again, not even for fucking football, and it pisses me off you don’t know that.” 

Stiles huffs and throws his hands in the air. “It was a joke.”

Another silence. 

Then, Derek is reaching out and putting his arm around Stiles’ shoulders, tugging him into his own body so that Stiles’ forehead knocks into Derek’s chest. It’s the closest they’ve ever come to actually hugging before, so it’s awkward and kind of stilted, sort of like Derek has no fucking idea about how to hug someone or even how to be hugged. “I just want to be with you,” he says this gruffly into Stiles’ hair. “I just want it to not be a big fucking deal.”

“Well it is,” Stiles does not relish saying this, not at all. “It is. Maybe if you weren’t…” maybe if he weren’t Derek Hale. But then he wouldn’t be him, at all. 

Derek squeezes him a bit harder, flush up against his chest. “I don’t know what I would do.”

That, Stiles has to understand. He has to understand that Derek cannot readily and easily throw his entire fucking life away for Stiles – because what even are they to each other? Stiles still isn’t entirely sure, and neither is Derek, and all they know is that they want each other. That’s not enough to give everything else up. 

It’s not enough, and Stiles has to get that.

**

The team winds up winning the next game and Stiles is there, again – this time Scott doesn’t give him weird looks or demand to know why or what’s going on, obviously because he already knows exactly what’s going on. This time, Isaac just sort of regards him instead of asking him if he’s here to fuck Derek’s game up. This time, when Stiles walks into the after party at Lydia Martin’s house there are people everywhere, loud, screaming and chanting and music and liquor and confetti. It was an important game, and it’s the Friday before Christmas break, and they had won.

Derek had won.

This time, when Stiles goes out the back doors into the crisp night air, there’s no one in the pool. It has been drained out for the winter. The hot tub has a handful of people laughing and talking, but for the most part, everyone has opted to stay indoors where there’s a fire in the living room and Bailey’s to put in hot chocolates and a big Christmas tree that lights everything up in ambiance. 

Out here, there are no other lights aside from those spilling out from the windows and from the white Christmas lights lining the trimming of the house. Stiles had come out here to escape the tight body heat and the noise, sipping his PBR and breathing in the night air. 

“Stilinski,” Derek’s voice comes from his left. He turns and sees the man himself sort of shrouded, to the side of the patio table where Erica Reyes had once eye-fucked the shit out of Stiles when he walked past it. He’s leaning up against the house, underneath a string of lights so his features are shadowed, but Stiles can tell he’s smiling. 

As Stiles walks closer to him, he notices that Derek has got a lit cigarette in his fingers. At this, Stiles lifts his eyebrows, coming to a stop two feet away from him. “You don’t smoke.”

Derek smirks and takes a drag, breathing the smoke out through his nose. Even though he’s only at most halfway through it, he flicks it off to the side, into a nearby potted plant. “It’s sort of like the after sex cigarette. After a good game it’s celebratory.” 

“I’d still rather you didn’t,” Stiles sits down on the edge of the patio table, putting his beer down next to him and gazing across the yard. 

“Okay, so I won’t.”

“It was a good game,” Stiles has to agree, nodding his head. “You played really well. You made a lot of, um, good plays.” 

Derek regards him, up and down, head to toe, and smiles. The real one. “You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.” 

“I don’t know football, you caught me.”

“Yet suddenly you’re at all the games.”

Stiles sips his drink and shrugs, as Derek traces his every movement with his eyes. “You like it when I come.”

Derek scuffs his feet against the concrete underneath them, snickering to himself. “I sure do.” 

“I didn’t meant that in the gross way,” he says immediately, but Derek just smiles wider.

“I meant it both ways.”

“Anyway,” Stiles looks away, to the sky, to the ground, feeling his cheeks heat up. “It was a good game. I guess I’ll allow the cigarette.” 

Derek has got his own beer, not an entire handle of something this time, which he drinks in the silence between them. 

“You know, I’ve noticed your mother never comes. Or your sisters.”

This gets an odd reaction from the other boy – he smiles. The arrogant one. “What makes you think any of them give a shit what I do?”

Stiles isn’t sure how to respond to that. He thinks that, considering this is what Derek wants to do with his entire life, and considering he’s actually really fucking good at it, his family would want to come and watch him do it, at least every now and then or at least when they were able to. If Stiles took any interest in organized sports, he knows beyond any shadow of a doubt his father would be there more than half of the time – Christ, the man used to religiously come to Stiles’ debates in middle school. Those would bore anyone to tears, but there he was, every Tuesday night for three years, clapping even if Stiles lost his debate. 

“Well, they’re gonna give a shit if you make it into the majors.” 

“If I make it, I plan on forgetting they all exist,” he says, and he’s smirking as he says it, like it brings him joy to even imagine it. 

Stiles doesn’t get a chance to respond to that, because the patio door opens, releasing loud party noises out into the yard before it closes quickly. Lydia Martin is standing there in her bathing suit, party cup in hand, staring at the two of them as she purses her lips and takes in the entire scene. 

They’re not doing anything. Derek is still a full two feet away from where Stiles is sitting – from the look on her face, you’d think she just walked in on them fucking, or something. “Stiles,” she greets, but says nothing at all to Derek, like he doesn’t even exist. “I hope you have a good Christmas.”

“Same to you,” he offers, watching her shiver in her bathing suit. She’s really going to stand here in forty degree weather in her fucking bikini just to make a point – that Derek Hale does not even rate the time of day or a merry Christmas from her. It’s petty, and so is she. It’s not surprising, but it is hilarious – Derek laughs.

She puts her nose in the air and goes to the hot tub, step by step, the ice in her cup sloshing as she goes. 

“It was worse when we slept together,” Derek informs him, still smirking as he watches her go. “She wouldn’t even look me in the eye. I think she’s got the only human pussy on earth that’s actually cold, like Superman’s fortress of solitude.” 

“You know, don’t forget I’ve been in there too, and it was fine.”

“It was fine,” Derek repeats with a guffaw. “That’s how I’d describe it, too.”

“Isn’t it weird how we’ve both slept with the same person?” He muses, resting his chin in his palm. “Like, no one else can say that. Or not many people can. That the person they’re in a relationship with has slept with someone they’ve also slept with.”

Derek sips his beer. Raises his eyebrows. “Relationship, huh?”

Stiles immediately back peddles, face going up in flames as he looks away, his palms going sweaty. He shoves his beer into his face for something to do, sipping quickly and swallowing. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he laughs nervously, shrugging. “Just – you know what I meant.”

There’s another pause, as Derek downs the rest of his drink, leaning forward to put the empty can down on top of the patio table. Stiles clears his throat and looks at where Lydia is in the hot tub, laughing and drinking, kinda wishing he could run over there and dip his head into the water so Derek would forget he had ever said that. 

“What do you say I drive you home?”

Stiles is surprised. He looks down at his half finished beer, and honestly he could care less whether he finishes it or not. “The party just started,” he argues weakly, and Derek shrugs. 

“It’s boring. C’mon,” he quirks his head in the direction of the yard, and then doesn’t wait for Stiles’ response. He just walks, onto the grass, toward the side of the house where he’ll walk around to the front where his car is parked. Stiles hesitates for only a fraction of a second, before he leaves his beer behind and rushes to catch up with Derek’s retreating back. 

As they walk, passing the windows and the spot among the bushes where Derek had kissed him the first time all those months ago, Stiles pulls his phone out and shoots a quick text to Scott letting him know he’s getting a ride home from Derek. Derek walks ahead of him as they get to the front of the house, the porch, where a few people are milling outside smoking cigarettes. They don’t notice Stiles and Derek leaving together, just talking amongst themselves without a care in the world. 

Derek’s car is parked a little ways up the block, so they walk there side by side in comfortable silence until they get inside, and Derek is driving away. 

True to Lydia’s word, she does live on the same street as Derek. They go right past Derek’s house on the way to Stiles’, a handful of windows in the mansion all lit up, Derek’s room at the top dark as night. 

Once they’re on Stiles’ street, Stiles clears his throat and sits up a bit, trying not to sound nervous when he says, “uh, you could park right here if you want.”

Derek looks at him. 

“Just because – my dad’s not home. So you could park here and then we could walk up to my house.” 

“You read my mind, Stilinski,” he smirks, as he slows to a stop and parks in front of the house several down from the Stilinski residence – this time, if any of their classmates happen to drive by they won’t see Derek Hale’s car parked out front and draw any conclusions, like Lydia had. They climb out and Derek’s car locks itself with a robotic little chirp, so they walk with their shoulders together up the street to Stiles’ dark house. 

Stiles keys his way inside and Derek follows. He takes his letterman jacket off and hangs it on a hook by the door, but Stiles doesn’t even bother to turn on the light down there. He just leads Derek to the stairs and takes them two at a time, climbing up and up until they get to Stiles’ bedroom door. 

Inside, Stiles flicks on the light, and then frantically begins to tidy a few things up. He pulls all the clothes off of the bed and throws them into his hamper, takes the stack of books off of his desk chair and moves them onto his desk, throws an empty Mountain Dew bottle into his waste basket instead of just lying on the floor. 

For his part, Derek just sits down on the edge of the bed and watches. “You’ve seen my room,” he says, a teasing note to his voice. “I don’t need things neat and clean.” 

“I do,” he says back, and then he can’t think of anything else to clean up. So he just stands there with his hands on his hips, meeting Derek’s eyes. “Obviously, we’re going to have sex.” 

“Obviously,” Derek leans back on his palms, raising his eyebrows again. “It’s my favorite post-game activity.” 

“That adds up,” Stiles looks down at his feet, nervously. He’s still got his shoes on, so he sits down on his desk chair and pulls them off one by one, shucking them off to the side. Derek leans down and does the same, piling them up right beside the bed. “Do want me to, uh –“ he scratches the back of his neck and laughs, a nervous tick. “I kinda want to try, uh –“

“There is absolutely nothing you could say to me that’s going to make me blush,” he says this, probably to be reassuring. “I’ve seen it all.” 

Stiles takes in a deep breath. He’s already getting hard in his pants, just thinking about it. “Do you want to put it in my mouth?”

Derek doesn’t laugh or make fun of him or smirk or anything; he smiles, genuine and gestures with two fingers for Stiles to come closer. “C’mere,” he says, and Stiles scratches at his cheek and does as he’s asked. Once he’s close enough, Derek grabs him and pulls down down into his lap, so Stiles’ knees are on either side of Derek’s legs on the bed, boxing him in. He looks up, into Stiles’ face, and puts a hand on his cheek. With a kind of mirth, like Santa Claus talking about presents or something, he says, “you want to suck me off?”

“Uh – yeah.”

Derek still has his hand on Stiles’ face, and just like many times before, he presses his thumb past Stiles’ lips, rests it on his tongue and grins when Stiles closes his lips around it and sucks. “You are fucking obscene,” he accuses, biting his lower lip. 

Stiles grabs Derek’s wrist to pull his hand off of his face, his thumb out of his mouth. “Do you think so?”

They kiss, hard and fast, Derek’s hands digging into Stiles’ hips in a vice grip, tugging him as close as he can physically get their bodies to be. 

When they pull apart, Derek is smiling again. “Oh, I think so. You should see the things we do in my head.” 

Stiles kisses him, Derek kisses back. “You should tell me,” Stiles goads, and Derek bites his lip again, looking at Stiles’ mouth. 

“You should get on your knees,” he answers back, so Stiles’ dick jumps in his pants and his cheeks go hot again, his whole body hot, the whole room hot. Even though he’s nervous and he’s never done this before, he tries not to hesitate as he slowly slides off of Derek’s body and off of the bed, to plant himself down on the ground in between Derek’s spread legs. He has big legs, a big body, so Stiles feels particularly small down here looking up at him. Derek’s fingers are quick as they undo his belt, his pants – as he pulls his dick out and lets it hang there right in front of Stiles’ face. 

Derek takes Stiles by the hair; it’s not rough. He just scratches at Stiles’ scalp, a calming gesture that works to help Stiles’ nerves go down. “Let’s see what that mouth can do other than be a smartass,” he says, and Stiles leans forward.

He wraps his lips around it, and he finds that for all his nerves and anxiety about it – about doing it wrong or fucking it up or not knowing what to do – it’s really not that hard. It sort of comes naturally, his body doing most of the work for him while his mind sort of shuts off. He bobs his head up and down, and Derek’s voice gets quiet. He says, whispers more like, “oh, fuck,” and then, “just like that,” and then, “fuuuckkk,” long and drawn out. Stiles has never heard his voice this soft before. 

He’s too nervous to look up into Derek’s face as he works, so he just imagines that his eyes are screwed shut, his mouth open, like the picture perfect image from a cheap porno. Derek tastes like himself, skin and Derek, and even though Stiles’ jaw starts to hurt pretty early on, he still tries his best to keep as much of Derek in his mouth as possible. When it gets too sore, he pulls off and licks at the head, suckles there gently, before going back to the whole thing. Derek’s hand goes rougher on his hair, maybe only a minute or so into it, gripping tightly and his body stiffening up.

“I’m going to fucking come,” he snaps, almost like he’s mystified by it, his entire body locking up. And then he does – the whole mess spills down Stiles’ throat, a little on his tongue so he tastes it. It’s salty and bitter, but he swallows dutifully, leaning back on his haunches to rub the back of his hand over his mouth, taking in a deep breath through his nose. 

When he looks at Derek, the other boy has got a hand over his eyes, his face flushed, his breaths a bit stuttery. When he speaks, his voice is a bit ragged. “I do not usually come that fast,” he says this like he’s embarrassed by it. 

Stiles shrugs. “It’s okay,” because it is. “So, is my mouth good at something else aside from making smartass comments?”

Derek’s laugh is small, but genuine. He reaches out and pets Stiles’ hair a bit, before he says, “come up here,” with another laugh. Stiles obliges, climbing back up onto Derek’s lap and wrapping his arms around Derek’s neck. “Yes, I think it is.”

They kiss. Derek does not seem to care that Stiles has got Derek’s dick juices all over his tongue and teeth, kisses him just the same as he always does. “It’s my turn,” Stiles says when they pull apart, smirking down at Derek, who smirks right back at him. 

“Oh, is it?” Derek stuffs his fingers under Stiles’ arms before Stiles can stop him – his most ticklish spot – so Stiles bursts out laughing and falls over onto the bed, kicking his legs frantically as Derek mercilessly attacks. Now that Derek has got him where he wants him, he grabs the hem of Stiles’ shirt and pulls it up and over Stiles’ head, tossing it off to the side like it’s nothing, more in the way than anything else. “I guess it is.” 

Stiles licks his lips and looks up at Derek from his pillow after he’s situated, a shaky breathy escaping from between his teeth. Derek pulls his own shirt over his head, kneeling over Stiles’ body all huge and it would be menacing if Stiles didn’t know that Derek wouldn’t ever hurt him, not ever again. He’s still got his pants undone, but his dick is tucked back down inside his briefs, the neon orange ones that Stiles always makes fun of.

Today is no different. He reaches out and pulls on the elastic band around the waist, so it slaps against Derek’s skin. “Pumpkin spice latte undies.”

Derek ignores this in favor of leaning down and flicking his tongue against Stiles’ left nipple – it instantly silences Stiles, no more jokes, no more heckling. He sucks in a deep breath when Derek does it again, and then again, and again. Soon enough he’s toying with him, tweaking one nipple with his fingers and using his mouth on the other one. It’s torturous. Stiles cants his hips up to try and get some friction against Derek’s leg, using one hand to stroke at the hairs at the base of Derek’s neck. 

He looks Stiles in the eye and says, “you are so sensitive.”

“I guess,” he pants, because Derek is still screwing around with one of Stiles’ nipples.

“Do you like it?”

It makes Stiles’ cheeks go hot, but he nods. “Yeah.”

Derek leans back down and starts doing that thing with his tongue again, so Stiles moans and bites his lower lip. He’s going to be all chapped up, when all this is over, he can already tell. 

Without saying a word, Derek takes his hand away from Stiles’ chest and uses it to rub at the bulge in Stiles’ jeans, up and down, again and again, so Stiles goes cross eyed from the pleasure coming at him from his two most sensitive places. “I’m going to come in my pants if you do that,” he says, frantic, and this does not make Derek stop. If anything, it makes him go at it harder, faster, more determined, as though he cannot fucking wait for Stiles to make a wet spot in his jeans, and honestly, Stiles can’t say that he would mind that –

“Stiles, you in here?” His bedroom door opens, and then there his father is, full regalia, bursting in on…well. This. 

Stiles practically hits Derek in the face, on accident, in his haste to get him the hell off of him – it’s too late, either way. The Sheriff says, “oh, _hell_ ,” and backs out of the room, slamming the door behind himself. 

There’s maybe five seconds. Derek climbs off of Stiles and sits down on the edge of the bed, no expression on his face, while Stiles goes numb. Totally and completely fucking numb, his hands shaking as he paws around the bed for his t-shirt. It’s all the way across the room. How did neither of them hear his dad coming inside? He must have been calling and calling up the steps, his big shoes clomping on the way upstairs, he probably even fucking knocked. 

Neither of them noticed. They were too busy to notice any of it. 

What he just saw must be becoming more clear to the Sheriff – he didn’t just walk in on his son having sex. He walked in on his son and…and – 

The door opens up, again, so hard that it bangs against the wall. He stands there in the doorway, while Stiles frantically climbs off the bed to get at his shirt, still shaking like a leaf in the wind, and he seems to only have eyes for Derek Hale. 

He stares. There is a particular vein in his forehead that becomes more pronounced when he gets really, truly, murderously angry, and Stiles can see it clear as day right now, as he pulls his shirt over his head and tries to hide the fact that he’s hard as a rock in his pants. “Dad,” he starts, voice very small, but still, the Sheriff just stares and stares at Derek Hale. Any moment he’s going to reach for his service weapon. 

For his part, Derek seems unaffected. He casually pulls his shirt back on over his head, runs his hand through his hair to get it back to its normal verve instead of sex tousled, meeting Stiles’ father’s eyes with a cool stare-back of his own. There does not seem to be even a touch of fear in him, not at all, while Stiles is still shaking. Not having a father figure in his life, or at least not a very good one, seems to have made him impervious. 

“Dad, we were just…” Stiles trails off, and the Sheriff still will not fucking look at him – still only seems to care that Derek Hale is in his son’s bedroom. 

“I know what you were doing,” he says, and Stiles palms his face. Of course he knows what they were doing – only an idiot would try to think anything else, and the Sheriff is certainly not that. 

Finally, his father turns and looks directly at him. The vein is still there, pulsing, and Stiles feels like he’s ten years old and just got caught stealing a second ice cream bar out of the freezer. “I guess now I know why you pretended to be on drugs for his benefit.”

“Um…” Stiles looks at Derek for backup. He is no help. He could be sitting in fucking English class for all his nonchalance, his face a blank fucking slate. 

“Downstairs,” the Sheriff snaps his fingers and points to the steps, his face grim. “Both of you, downstairs. Right now.” He points a finger at Derek, menacing. “I’m calling your mother.” 

Derek looks off somewhere, frowns, and then rolls his eyes. “Great,” he mutters, standing from the bed – he looks even bigger, now, bigger than his dad by a shoulder’s width. “Then you can arrest her for driving under the influence when she shows up completely sloshed and fucked out of her head on pills, Sheriff.”

His father does not even know where to begin with that statement, so he just doesn’t with it at all. Stiles says, “dad, it’s – it’s really late.” 

“She’ll come,” he snaps, and Stiles shrinks in on himself and can’t figure out if the Sheriff is mad at him for being a faggot or mad because it’s Derek Hale or mad because he’s disappointed or mad because he’s embarrassed to have Stiles for a son. He just gets smaller and sheepishly heads down the steps at his father’s behest, with Derek hot on his heels. 

They sit at the kitchen table, Derek and Stiles right next to each other, while the Sheriff uses the land line to call the Hale residence. Stiles imagines the phone ringing in the silence, echoing off the high ceilings in the halls that hardly ever get walked through. The two boys sit quietly, Derek sat with his arms over his chest, Stiles with his hands together in between his legs as he practically vibrates out of his seat with anxiety. He doesn’t know what his dad is thinking, what he’s going to do, what’s going to happen, anything. 

His dad hangs up the phone, looks only at Derek when he says, “she’ll be here in a couple of minutes.” 

“Yippee.”

“Derek,” Stiles warns in a low voice, and then Derek turns to look at him – he sees Stiles’ big eyes, his pale face, his hands shaking, how small he looks, and he deflates a little bit. There’s a defense mechanism in him that’s being activated, this hard exterior that’s mean and sarcastic, but when he looks at Stiles he dials it back, just slightly, just enough to sigh through his nose.

“It’ll be fine,” he says, reaching out to squeeze Stiles on the shoulder with one of his big bear paws, but neither of them really know that for sure.

“What’s going on here?” The Sheriff demands, looking between the two of them as though the answer will be written on one of their faces. “What is going on?”

“We didn’t need to be calling my mother,” Derek says, very matter-of-fact. “That’s all I know.” 

“Stiles?” His dad looks at him, looks and looks, waiting for an answer, and Stiles’ mouth opens and closes. He cannot speak. He doesn’t know what to say – he never planned for what he would say if his dad ever burst in on him having sex with another boy, he never planned for this, so now he’s stuck like a deer in headlights. “Were you two…” he trails off, as though he can’t even speak it out loud, and Stiles curls in on himself like a dying spider and looks away. 

There’s the distinct sound of a car engine pulling up, purring like an expensive one, and then a door slamming. Derek frowns so deeply his mouth could fall off of his face. “This is about to get really, really fun,” he mutters to Stiles, leaning back into his seat and glowering down at the table top. 

Derek acts like his mother is an evil specter of the night, or something, and not…you know. His flesh and blood fucking mother. 

She does not knock when she gets to the door. She just walks right in, like invitation is a given, and the Sheriff sits down at the table right across from Stiles and sort of slouches down, exhausted. He does hate Talia Hale, after all, and now she’s in his home in the wake of all of … this, and he just seems wholly unprepared to deal with any of it. In she comes, and Stiles realizes as he looks at her just how seldom he has ever seen her in person. In passing a few times, yes. But actually having her standing there in his kitchen, still and serious, is sort of striking. 

She kind of is an evil specter of the night, after all. She’s in a sleek black skirt-suit, full face of make up, high heels on, even though it’s nearly one o’clock in the morning at this point. She looks as though she just left the office, or something, or maybe this is just what she always looks like, because money buys the illusion of constantly being put together. She is also incredibly attractive. She has to be at least forty, but she looks not a day over thirty-two, young and sleek looking. She must have had work done. 

She looks at the situation in front of her. Stiles, the scum that she must think he is, and her own son that she barely knows exists, and the Sheriff, the kitchen itself, the house, and makes a face. This is clearly all beneath her, but here she stands anyway. 

“What could possibly be so important to have me rush over here at one in the morning?” She asks, kind of looking at Derek like she’s going to kill him, because of course it must be all his fault.

Talia has got a really nice looking purse, which she places on the table in between herself and her son before she sits down, leaning back into the chair with a grim look on her face. Then, it’s the Sheriff’s turn to speak up, and as he sits up and seems to try to find the words to describe what has transpired here tonight, he falters a bit. 

“Well, I seem to have walked in on –“ he starts, and Derek is pointedly refusing to look directly at his mother. “…these two were –“

Stiles can’t handle the way his father can’t even speak it out loud, like it’s so disgusting to him, and the entire situation is unbelievably fucking humiliating. Talia Hale is here acting like she’s been asked to enter the slums and Derek is angry and the Sheriff must hate him, for this, so the stress of the entire situation bears down on him like a tidal wave.

He cries, because it’s all he can do. Hugs his arms against himself, not looking anyone in the eye as he sniffles and tries to hide his tears. Of course, this does not for one second go unnoticed by his father, whose antenna immediately goes up. 

“What’s the matter?” He demands, alert. “Why are you crying?”

Stiles swipes at his tears quickly, but they just keep coming and coming, feeling small, a spotlight on him as everyone stares. “Just…” he starts, then can’t finish, another wave of misery overtaking him. 

His father draws an immediate conclusion. It’s a conclusion that comes very naturally, as he looks between Derek and Stiles, the latter in tears, taking Derek and Stiles’ history and computing what he had seen upstairs and the way that Derek has been acting since that happened. He says, “was he _forcing_ you to –“

Derek stands up, nearly knocking his chair over with how quickly he does. “What the fuck?” He shouts, loud, louder than Stiles has ever heard him be, and then the Sheriff is up, too. “What the fuck is the matter with you? You think I would ever do something like that?” 

“I know plenty about you, Derek Hale,” he accuses, angry, angry, angry, even while Stiles tries to say something about calming down and of course that’s not what’s going on here, all of it going unheard like he’s not speaking at all. “And sure I do.”

Derek’s jaw clenches shut and he looks, for one moment, like he might just try to physically attack Stiles’ dad. The thought is abhorrent, the idea ridiculous, the accusation hideous. 

This is obvious. The Sheriff says, “please hit me. Give me one reason to take you in, I’m begging you.”

Talia is sitting there, placid, no comment, no action, nothing. It’s like she’s watching television instead of her own son about to get into a physical fight with an officer of the law. 

It is just lucky then, that Derek is not stupid. As mad as he is, as crazy as he might be, he is just not that fucking stupid, so he doesn’t try to attack the Sheriff. He just stands there and maybe imagines it, fantasizes about it, what he would do with just one swing.

“Dad, he wasn’t doing anything,” Stiles says, wiping at his face and clearing his throat. “He wasn’t – it wasn’t like that. I’m – I’m –“

“What?” 

Then this is the moment that Stiles knows that the truth is overdue, has been overdue for a very long time now, and that he has no choice. Christ, his father would sooner believe that Derek Hale has been forcing him to have sex with him than he would that his own son is gay – and why not? Stiles has only spent his entire life lying about it, directly to his face. 

Stiles’ chin wobbles, while Derek sits back down slowly and reaches out, to put his hand on Stiles’ shoulder. It’s big and warm, like an anchor, from the ship on Derek’s chest, holding him down and keeping him safe, so he can be brave, and say anything he has to. “I’m gay.” 

Stiles’ imagination has spent the better part of the last five years, maybe even longer than that, imagining what would happen if his father ever found out the truth about who his son is. He has imagined getting hit in the face, even though his father would never do that, because he’s seen it on TV. He has imagined getting kicked out, he has imagined getting screamed at, has imagined being banished to his room, has imagined the Sheriff thinking it’s a joke, insisting that Stiles isn’t gay, couldn’t possibly be. He braces himself for one of these to happen, here and now, in real time and not just inside Stiles’ head, and as Derek’s hand tightens on Stiles’ shoulder to both offer comfort and protection, he knows that Derek is just as nervous as he is. 

But his father does not react to this information the way Stiles ever, even in his wildest dreams, would’ve expected him to. He does not recoil or seem disgusted or…really, much of anything at all. He just sort of gestures towards the stairs, up to where Stiles’ bedroom is, and he says, “well, evidently!” As though it’s nothing, just something that he has now learned and is perhaps grappling with only because it’s new information – nothing more, nothing less. Obviously Stiles is gay, and so what? “Why are you crying?”

Stiles fumbles for words, because this isn’t what he had expected and he had expected a fight and – and because that’s why he’s crying, that is precisely fucking why – he does not, however, get the chance to speak, because Talia Hale is suddenly involved in the conversation. She sits forward a bit, holding her hands out as if she’s hitting the pause button, and says, “hold on. Hold on, hold on. _What_ is this about?” 

Stiles’ dad sits back down, again, letting loose a long suffering sigh. With a wave of his hand, he says, “I walked in on the two of them, you know. Going at it.” 

“You mean another fight,” she clarifies, while Derek sits up straighter in his chair and frowns. 

“No, I mean – like they were going to have sex.” 

Talia’s laugh is immediate and quick, a surprised sounding thing that bubbles up from her throat. It actually kind of reminds Stiles of one of Derek’s laughs. “No,” she says, certain of it as she shakes her head. She is sort of acting like she suspects this is a punking. 

“Uh, yup,” the Sheriff argues, a thin smile spreading across his face. How any of this could possibly be amusing to him is beyond Stiles, absolutely beyond him in another dimension. 

“Derek,” she looks at her son as though she’s waiting for him to bring the camera crew and Ashton Kutcher out. 

Derek doesn’t smile. He says, brutal in its honesty, “we were ten thousand percent fucking.”

“ _What_?” She looks at Stiles, up and down, and Stiles sort of feels like an animal in the zoo. She’s assessing him like she’s never fucking seen him before, or seeing him in a new way, which Stiles guesses makes sense. “No.”

“We have been fucking for months.”

“ _Months_?” This is the piece of information that has his father shocked, finally, and Stiles looks at him and opens his mouth, closes it. He’s imagining all of the lies, most likely, all the half truths that Stiles must have been telling him all this time. 

But Talia isn’t buying it. Or if she is, she’s deeply in denial. She laughs again like it’s really funny, really hilarious. 

“Oh, whatever,” Derek snaps, like he honestly could give a fuck less what his own mother does or does not believe, and then he seems to mentally check out from her entirely, looking away and focusing only on Stiles, like he’s the only one in the room. 

“Why are you so upset?” The Sheriff demands again, while Talia puts her hand over her mouth and leans over the table, eyes going far away. 

“Because it – you were like fucking freaking out like it’s the worst possible thing that I’m –“

“Kid, I do not care if you’re gay or straight or any of it,” he snaps, angry about it. “I would love you no matter what, you should know that! What is making me freak out is that it’s,” here, he thrusts his hand in Derek’s direction, “it’s this god damn kid that I walk in and find on top of you.” 

For his part, Derek just sort of looks like he wants a beer – no reaction. 

“He’s not the fucking devil, like you seem to think!”

“Maybe not,” Talia interrupts, lifting a single eyebrow, “but you two have spent your entire lives up until a few months ago beating the hell out of each other. You could understand the confusion.” 

“Fuck off, mom,” Derek mutters under his breath, and Talia sighs deep through her nose like she’s kind of used to this sort of a thing. Stiles could not imagine the torment that would await him if he ever told his dad to fuck off, so he looks between the two of them, waiting for something to happen - but nothing does.

“She’s right,” his dad agrees, ignoring Derek completely. “He’s given you black eyes and bloody noses and a broken wrist once, and then I come into my own house and find you two…kissing.” 

Derek laughs, just a little. Stiles knows it’s because they were doing a whole hell of a lot more than fucking kissing. 

“What do you want me to say?” Stiles says, holding his arms out. “We just…he’s.”

Their parents are waiting for an explanation, and maybe they are owed one, just a little bit. They have a point. His father is sitting there with his hand on his forehead staring out blankly at nothing, probably thinking _Christ, you either want to fucking kill him or fuck him is that it?,_ and Stiles doesn’t know how to explain it. He can’t. There’s nothing to explain, because it just…is. It happened. 

For the first time since this entire thing started, Derek actually speaks, saying something that isn’t sarcastic or cutting. He sits up and says, “he’s the only person who actually gives a half of a shit about me. In my whole life. So.”

Stiles’ dad looks at him and sighs like he again has no idea what to do with that statement, the same as with most of the things Derek has said tonight, while Talia gets…angry. It’s probably because that statement was underhanded, towards her. “You’re going to fuck your entire life up with this shit,” she says, not very kind at all, and Derek bears it in a way that suggests he endures these attacks pretty regularly. 

It makes Stiles instantly protective, mad, so he turns on her and narrows his eyes. “Fuck up his life, really? It’s not like it’s fucking _child abuse_ , or anything.” 

She knows what he means, instantly, Stiles can tell from how her posture goes stiff, and her jaw sets the same way that Derek’s does when he gets angry. She looks at Stiles like she would give just about anything to reach out and slap him across the face. It’s unnerving, the look she gives him, and this is when Stiles decides that she is a terrifying human being. 

All this goes right over the Sheriff’s head, though, as he looks at Talia and really, really frowns. “How would this ruin his life?” 

She acts as though the other two men aren’t there at all, leaning over the table to point in Derek’s face. “You want to throw everything away to have sex with _Stiles Stilinski_? You know they won’t take you if they find out about this shit.” 

“Whoa,” the Sheriff says, taken aback by her tone, that it’s directed at her own son, the way she just said his own son’s name like Stiles a little cockroach she wants to kill. 

“You wanna be the best? You want to make it big? This is not how you go about doing it, Derek.” It reminds Stiles of what Derek said that night after the team lost, up in the guest room at Jackson Whittemore’s house – a callback to the types of things his father used to say to him. 

“I am the best,” he hisses, “who I’m fucking shouldn’t matter.”

“Well, it does to these people. It does to these people, you should know that. This –“ she waves to the room at large, but Stiles knows she’s speaking specifically about himself and Derek, “is over. This is done.”

Derek looks at his hands in his lap, his jaw clenching and unclenching, his eyes dark. Stiles and his dad share a look, like they cannot believe this is happening, like this whole thing is out of their hands and this is not what either of them had expected to happen. Ten seconds ago they were probably supposed to be sitting here talking all this through – now, it’s completely out of their hands, and has turned into an episode of The Dysfunction of the Hale Family. It is not a very good show. 

“Let’s go,” she stands from the table, picking up her purse. Her words sound final, and Derek just sits there staring at his hands for another few seconds. “Derek.”

Stiles wants to say something, but he doesn’t know what. He wants to call her out and make her feel small the same way she’s made Derek feel small his whole life, wants to make her feel like she’s a shitty person because she is one, wants to stand up for Derek more than anything in the world. But he can’t say anything – not a single thing. Too much has happened and Stiles’ brain has short circuited, all his sarcasm and wit drained clean out of him. 

Without saying a word, Derek reaches out and takes Stiles by the face, smashing their lips together hard. They kiss, and kiss, and Stiles can hear the distinct sound of Talia huffing a disgusted sigh. 

When Derek pulls away he looks Stiles in the eyes, says “see you tomorrow,” as if his mother hadn’t just attempted to ban them from seeing each other altogether. 

Then he gets up and goes with his mother, out the door, which gets slammed hard behind them. Once they’re gone for good his dad clears his throat and seems a little shell shocked. “I guess I have to understand why Derek is like that, now.”

Stiles puts his hands on his face and feels like he just left the battle field. He’s shaking, his head pounding, his anxiety kicked into hyperdrive. He’s barely thinking when he says, “his dad used to beat the hell out of him, too, so there’s that.” 

“Christ,” he bursts out, eyes big in his head. “He told you that?”

“Yeah, he did. He tells me everything,” he listlessly looks to the window, watching Talia’s headlights go across the window in the living room, as Derek is gone. “He tells me everything,” he repeats this, if only to drive home the reality of the situation. That Derek and Stiles maybe aren’t just fucking anymore, that there’s something between them, that maybe the sheriff will not be able to understand. 

“Uh, okay.” He seems to be wrapping his brain around this entire thing, still. “You know I don’t like him.” 

“Dad,” Stiles says, agitated.

“Let me say it,” he insists, so Stiles goes quiet and sad, leaning his chin into his palm on the table. He wishes Derek were still here. “I don’t like that kid, I do not like him. I don’t like that he used to fight you and I don’t like his little rich boy attitude and I don’t like him.” 

“Okay.”

“And I think he has substance abuse issues and obviously…other issues, as well. And I do not fucking like him.”

Stiles very rarely hears his dad swear, so he knows that he’s dead serious. Stiles sighs and squeezes his eyes shut, and he wants to get into his Jeep and follow Derek home and go up to his bedroom and be alone with him, more than anything else. “I really care about him and he really cares about me.”

It’s quiet in the kitchen for a minute or so after that, both of the men basking in everything that just happened. His dad takes this information in, frowns, and bangs his fist on the table. “It just had to be him, huh?”

Did it have to be? Stiles doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he doesn’t say anything; he just wonders if he’s going to be in trouble, or not. 

“How long have uh,” he clears his throat and sits up a bit, like he’s forcing himself to not be weird about it. “…how long have you two been, uh.”

Stiles sighs, and there’s another question he doesn’t know how to answer. “It kinda depends on how you look at it.” 

“I take it I don’t want to know what that means,” he says, very serious, as he turns to stare out the window with a kind of far away look in his eyes – maybe he’s thinking about chasing after Derek and beating the hell out of him, or maybe he’s thinking how he can possibly keep Stiles and Derek apart, or maybe he’s just…trying to wrap his head around it all. “Seems like just yesterday you were ten years old crying to me because Derek Hale stole your lunch.” 

There’s another long pause, seeing as how Stiles has no idea how to inform his father he’s not a little kid anymore, and how it would seem unkind to say anything of the sort at this exact moment. 

“I don’t approve of this,” he decides, and Stiles rubs at his jaw and frowns. 

“Well,” he starts, then doesn’t know where to go from there. It’s not like his father can actually keep him from seeing Derek, chief of all because they go to school together and even more so because this whole thing is much bigger than what his father does or doesn’t think of it anyway. His dad knows that, so he just huffs and looks kind of mad about it. 

“Well,” he repeats back, but he doesn’t have any idea what else to say, either.


	8. Do You Have It In You?

Stiles wakes up much earlier than he should, for someone who was up well past two in the morning enduring one of the most emotionally traumatic nights of his life. He’s up at seven am, brewing a pot of coffee and leaning back against the opposite counter, watching as the water drips brown into the decanter. His father had told him in no uncertain terms that he absolutely hates Derek and refuses to say he’s okay with him being anywhere near his son, but he had never said he forbid it from happening. 

More likely than not, he just didn’t want to be a mirror image of Talia Hale. Stiles had never known the way that Derek’s mother treated him because Derek never talked about it, but now he knows, and so does Stiles’ dad. It wasn’t good, not by a long shot. She treats him like he doesn’t exist until he fucks up, and then she’s unforgiving and cold. It’s no wonder, then, that Derek has a hard time with any kind of romantic gesture aside from fucking. Why proof of love boils down to him beating the hell out of someone else in Stiles’ name. Why they’ve never even actually hugged or held hands in spite of how long they’ve been going at it. 

Stiles had kinda always chalked it up to Derek being uncomfortable with displays of affection with another boy, even in private; now, he thinks he knows better. It was easy to wrap his arm around Erica or kiss her in front of everyone because she pulled him into it every time. Stiles hasn’t exactly pushed him, and Derek doesn’t know how to do any of it on his own. 

It’s not Stiles’ place to psychoanalyze his pseudo-boyfriend, but Christ, no one else is bothering with his mental health at all. 

The coffee is ready, so Stiles pours himself a mug and takes his time adding sugar and cream until it’s just the color he likes, staring out the kitchen window. The cat from next door is chasing dogs again, and it’s a good show to watch for a minute or two. It doesn’t take his mind off of anything, not even for a second, but it is nice to let his mind wander off instead of hyper-focusing. 

Two hard knocks on his front door startle him a bit, into putting his coffee down on the kitchen counter and briefly glancing down at what he’s got on. A t-shirt he dug out of his hamper, sweatpants with a hole in the knee and a couple of stains from who knows when. It’s not as embarrassing as it could be, and anyway he figures it to just be the UPS guy or something dropping off one of his dad’s top secret police work packages that always need a signature. 

Instead, when he opens up the door, he finds Derek Hale. Says as much, out loud, in surprise. “Derek Hale,” he greets, and Derek sort of smirks at him. 

He looks the same as he always does. He’s got on dark pants, his letterman jacket with a plain black T-shirt on underneath, his converse, his sunglasses, and an expression on his face like he could not give a fuck less about anything. “Stiles Stilinski,” he shoots back, smirking even bigger. 

“Uh,” he starts, and then clears his throat. “I kinda figured maybe I wouldn’t be seeing you for a bit.” 

“What would make you think that?” 

“Well seeing as how, you know, your mom basically forbid you from coming anywhere near me?” 

Derek smiles, all teeth, and pulls his sunglasses off of his face, folding them up and tucking them into his front pocket. “Are you going to invite me in?”

Stiles starts, as if he just remembered that they’re hovering out on his front porch, and nods his head. In they go, crowding into the foyer, Stiles shutting the door behind him as Derek steps all the way inside. He takes off his letterman and hangs it up on the nearest hook, so then he’s just in his T-shirt, his tan arms on display, and Stiles ignores the immediate surge of attraction that goes through him at seeing them, focuses on the issue at hand. 

“Are you okay?” He asks, stepping as close to Derek as he dares to get. “Last night was…a lot.” 

Derek regards him with that same give-a-fuck look, like none of it matters. “Sure, I’m okay,” but he doesn’t give any more details or information, like there’s nothing more to say, even though there most certainly is. 

It’s clear to Stiles that he’s being evasive, doesn’t want to talk about it, came here maybe just so he could fuck and get his mind off of it. But Stiles isn’t just one of Derek’s dumb fuck buddies or one of his idiotic football teammates, so he stands his ground. “Well, what happened when you got home?” 

This seems to amuse Derek, for whatever reason, and Stiles ignores the smile because he knows it’s a load of bullshit. “What happened when I got home,” he repeats, looking Stiles up and down. Stiles remembers the embarrassing outfit he’s got on, but then it doesn’t really matter. “Nothing.”

“Nothing,” Stiles repeats back to him. His tone is loaded with disbelief.

“What do you imagine happened? Between me and my mother.” He leans back against the wall and sighs through his nose. “That we had a heart to heart? That we talked about anything at all? Even that she would’ve yelled at me or said a single word to me or that I was in trouble?”

In his head, Stiles had imagined maybe that she slapped him in the face or that she called him a faggot or that maybe she even banished him to his room, or any number of other horrible things she could’ve possibly done to him. She didn’t strike him as being particularly warm. 

“She didn’t say a word to me on the way home, and I haven’t seen her since,” he says, and it’s like he thinks it’s funny, so ridiculous that Stiles would think anything else could’ve possibly happened. 

Stiles had thought the worst thing she could do to him would’ve been to hit him or scream at him, was sure that this is what had happened. But somehow, hearing that Derek doesn’t even rank that from her is worse. That she won’t talk to him or look at him or act like he’s there at all…maybe that’s even worse than anything she could possibly do to him. 

Stiles sucks in a deep breath and feels so horrible, so terrible, it bubbles up in his throat, forms a lump there. Derek hasn’t got anyone else on earth to talk to, really, aside from Stiles. His sisters are ghosts, his mother a shadow, his friends idiots, the rest of the school people who despise him, and then it’s just Stiles. 

Ignoring the hesitation and plowing forward anyway, Stiles reaches out and wraps his arms around Derek’s neck, pressing his body against his entirely and holding on for dear life. It is not in the DNA of their relationship at all to hug, to be so close or so tender with one another, so Stiles honestly expects resistance. For Derek to push him away and tell him to relax, to stop being so fucking stupid, to get away from him. 

Instead, Derek only stiffens for one second. In surprise, most likely, because who knows when the last time someone hugged him was? It’s only a second, and then he’s huffing out something that sounds kind of embarrassed, and returning the hug. 

He puts his arms around Stiles’ waist, his chin buried into Stiles’ shoulder. 

They stay that way for a minute or so before Stiles interrupts the silence, turning his head just a bit so his mouth is closer to Derek’s ear. “It’s okay, you know,” he says, squeezing him just a bit tighter before pulling back to look him in his face. This close, their noses nearly touching, it’s so easy to see the parts of the façade he’s always putting on that are starting to crack around the edges. Or, maybe they have always been cracked, and only now does Stiles know him well enough to tell. “To say that it sucks.” 

Derek gets that weird, sad smile on his face. Stiles has only seen it maybe once or twice, and every time, it sort of takes him off guard. To see someone be so sad, so fucking sad, but to be smiling. It is his only defense, to act like nothing bothers him. To smile because anything else is unthinkable. “Well it does,” he admits, but he won’t meet Stiles’ eyes. Won’t say anything else. 

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees. “I’m your friend, you know. You can tell me stuff.” 

They pull apart, just enough that Derek can stuff his hands into his jean pocket like he’s afraid of what he’d do with them if they were free, just enough for Derek to hang his head. Briefly, before he covers it up with another one of those smiles, he looks ashamed. “I came here to have sex with you,” he admits. 

“I figured that,” Stiles says, cocking his head to the side. “I kinda know you.” 

“You think so,” he counters, looking away. Far, far, far away. 

“No, I do.” 

“Stiles, you don’t,” he holds his hands out, like he’s gesturing, but then he doesn’t know what he’s trying to say, so they just hover there in the air between himself and Stiles, the fingers curling and uncurling. “…you don’t really.”

“You think no one can really see you, well I can,” he snaps, angry, mad at the accusation that Derek is such a fucking mystery. Maybe to other people, but Stiles isn’t just anybody. “All this bullshit you put on, I can see you underneath all of it.” 

Derek is breathing quickly, maybe because he’s angry or maybe because he might cry or maybe because he’s anxious – but when he speaks, it’s hard to tell still. “If you did, you wouldn’t want anything to do with me.” 

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Stiles crosses his arms over his chest. “You think you’re this terrible person because being a shitty asshole is easier than admitting you’re in pain.” 

Derek looks away, then turns away, heads off like he’s going to disappear down the hall, maybe to the back door to make a quick escape. Instead he just paces, turning around as quickly as he had gone, coming back to the conversation. A big shame has been exposed, and being known and seen is the scariest thing for Derek, and maybe this is the moment that Derek realizes Stiles has seen too much and knows too much. More than Derek had ever intended. 

Instead of arguing or getting angry or storming off, Derek just exists in this moment. He says the truth. “I feel,” he starts, this terrible look on his face, “miserable. Like, all the time. Like…all the fucking time. Do you know what it’s like to feel like that?”

Stiles swallows. He says, “no,” because he can’t imagine it. 

“It’s like I just am. You know? It’s like all I’m ever gonna be is just this – fucking – vessel for the shitty feeling. Like it’s an infection in my brain that won’t get out.” 

“That’s not what it is,” Stiles insists, but Derek seems like he doesn’t want to hear it. He puts his hands on his hips and frowns, so deep, his eyes blank. It’s terrible. 

“And I just came here to fuck you because fucking you is the only thing that makes me feel like I’m like – alive, at all,” he refuses to look at Stiles, instead choosing the ground. “And drinking, and football. Just like you’ve always said,” he smirks. “Drinking and football and sex, my poor little rich boy routine.” 

Stiles stands his ground, won’t let Derek goad him into an argument, because that’s what he wants. He wants Stiles to be angry with him, call him an asshole, kick him around a bit because it’s what he’s used to and it’s what he thinks he deserves. Instead, Stiles stands up straighter and says, “you are so fucking depressed, and you won’t do anything about it. You need to take your god damn anti-depressants and you need to go to therapy.” 

Derek is immediately shrugging that off, waving his hand like Stiles doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “She just wants me on those pills because it makes her feel better about herself.” 

“No, shut up,” Stiles shoves Derek on the shoulder, not hard, just enough so Derek will finally look at him. “You pour those pills down the drain and drink yourself half to death and fuck everything that moves and you won’t talk to anyone about how your parents fucked you up.”

Derek opens his mouth to argue it, but Stiles talks right over him.

“Yes, that’s right, they did, and it’s all their fault. It’s not your fault you’re like this, Derek! And it’s not fair that the only person you blame is yourself, that’s not fair.”

There’s not a whole lot that Derek wants to say back to that. He kinda leans back, putting his arms over his chest and observing Stiles standing there – he looks Stiles up and down, a blank expression on his face. Stiles thinks that Derek is deciding that Stiles may be right. Stiles has seen too much of him. “Huh,” he says, as though he’s looking at a math problem. 

“You never thought of it that way, did you?” And then Stiles wonders what it would be like to go through life believing that things completely out of your control were all your fault. He wonders what it would have been like if he considered his own traumas to be his fault; if he had believed that his mother’s death were his fault, if he had thought he were responsible for his father’s subsequent drinking problem, if he took the blame for the fact that he had to learn how to take care of himself for a while. 

It would be too much to bear, and Stiles’ own childhood traumas don’t really hold a candle to Derek’s. 

“You think you’re so smart,” Derek says, and he has said as much to Stiles before, but this time, he says it differently. He does not say it like it’s a dig, or like they’re fighting, or like he even thinks it’s bad. “I feel bad that I came here just to fuck you.”

Stiles shrugs, like it’s no big deal. Honestly, Stiles probably would’ve done it, but he’s not about to let Derek know that. “So, then, your mother doesn’t want us seeing each other.”

This is a non-issue to Derek, or at least, he acts as though it is. “Fuck her,” he says, so Stiles feels effectively whiplashed by the conversation once more. They’re hugging, they’re arguing, they’re talking about fucking, they’re arguing. 

It’s the perfect time for Stiles’ father to materialize at the top of the steps, behind where Derek is standing at the base of them. Stiles straightens up a bit and clears his throat to alert Derek to the other man’s presence before he says something stupid or embarrassing or, worst of all, incriminating. “Dad,” he says, so Derek takes the hint and turns. He seems surprised, as though he hadn’t checked for the cruiser in the driveway this time, had forgotten Stiles has a father at all. 

“It’s a little early to have a friend over,” the Sheriff says. He’s standing there in his pajama pants and a white t-shirt, slippers on. He had clearly smelled the coffee and awoken, expecting the paper and the morning news and eggs – not an ambush from Derek Hale. 

Derek is not a television show boyfriend. So he doesn’t say hello or good morning or even really look in the man’s direction – he sort of just stands there, like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Stiles wonders how many fathers he’s ever taken the time to meet, in his past relationships. He bets somewhere between zero and one. 

Stiles thinks, considering everything that’s happened, it would only serve him well to be honest. He says, “we just had a lot to talk about after last night.” 

“Uh-huh,” the Sheriff says. He may be imagining all the ways he could threaten Derek to never come near his son again, or imagining kicking him through a window, or beating him over the head with his night stick. Fantasies, and nothing more. He descends the steps and comes to the landing, right next to where Derek is standing. “You’re welcome to join us for breakfast.” 

“We were going to go up to my room,” Stiles corrects, and Derek says nothing. 

This does not please his father. He makes a face, like he imagines precisely what they’ll do up there all alone. “Maybe another time.”

This, Stiles does not argue, and neither does Derek. Without having to be asked or told, Derek moves and grabs his jacket off of the hook, shrugging it on quickly with a frown on his face. “Oh, uh –“ Stiles clears his throat and wonders if he should kiss Derek goodbye or hug him or do much of anything. 

“Have a good Christmas,” he tells Stiles, awkward and gruff, and then he’s out the door like a bat out of hell. Stiles is whiplashed again, standing with his arms over his chest and a frown as he peers out the window and watches Derek head down the street. 

Oh, right, Stiles thinks. He remembers that Derek had parked his car down the street last night to avoid suspicion, and he had left it there all night. He had walked here to fuck Stiles and then collect his car, two birds one stone. 

“That’s your boyfriend, huh?” The Sheriff is not impressed with him. Derek comes off rude, disaffected, unfriendly, and at times, mute. 

“I don’t even know if I should call him that,” Stiles mutters. “Coffee’s ready.”

**

Stiles works the day before Christmas Eve shift, which is hectic and insane and exhausting – he gets stuck on the floor doing shelves, so he’s just out among the people having to answer a zillion questions about where this or that is, how come they’re out of this, is there more in the back, and on and on.

He hadn’t had a chance to check his phone all day, so when he gets off and sits down in the driver’s seat in his car, the first thing he does even before starting his engine is check for texts or missed calls. One missed call and voicemail from Scott, likely inquiring what time he and Melissa should be over for Christmas Eve dinner tomorrow, and then a text message from Derek Hale.

Stiles is surprised. Derek has been absent for the past two days since the, uh, fight, if that is what one wants to call it. No calls, no texts, just the memory of him grabbing his coat and leaving without so much a goodbye. Just a wish to have a good Christmas, which Stiles read as a fuck you of some sorts. Or at least as a ‘see you long after Christmas is over.’ Derek is harder to read the more Stiles gets to know him. 

He had said Stiles was important, that Stiles is the only one who knew him at all, that his mother could fuck off if she thought she was going to be able to keep the two of them apart. But then he’s awkward and weird, won’t say hi to Stiles’ father, won’t dignify their relationship with a label, won’t text or call Stiles for days. 

Until now. 

Derek Hale, 5:34 PM : Do you have any big Christmas plans?

Stiles puts his phone down in his lap and makes a face out at the emptying parking lot. What? Derek Hale is not one to randomly message people out of thin air asking about Christmas plans. He messages about fucking and – yeah, that’s pretty much it. Stiles finds this, too, awkward and bizarre. 

Me, 10:45 PM : Sorry, I was working all night. Christmas Eve dinner with Scott and Melissa, presents with my dad Christmas Day. You?  
Derek Hale, 10:47 PM : So you’re busy.

Stiles rubs his face and stares at that text for a long time. What the hell is he supposed to say to that? 

Me, 10:50 PM : ummm yes. I guess so. I take it Christmas is not a big deal at your house. 

There’s no answer to that text even after Stiles drives home and goes up to his room. He queues up the Xbox and jiggles his leg, staring at his phone, waiting for a notification to light up the screen. It doesn’t come. 

He plays a Call of Duty match, and still, no response. 

Me, 11:45 PM : Is there a reason you asked me that, orrr?   
Derek Hale, 11:46 PM : It would’ve been nice to see you.

Stiles sucks in a deep breath and thinks about throwing his phone across the room. Instead, he texts back. 

Me, 11:50 PM : Funny, seeing as how I haven’t heard so much of a peep out of you these past couple of days and you just like fucked off! 

Instead of getting a text return to that, Stiles’ phone buzzes in his hand. He’s taken off guard; Derek has never once called him on the phone, but there his name is, giving Stiles the option to answer or reject the call. He should reject it, really. 

Instead, he picks it up. 

“What are you talking about, I fucked off?” His voice sounds bizarre over the phone, kinda like his evil twin instead of what he actually sounds like. Tinny and distant, smaller somehow. 

“Uh, what are _you_ talking about?” Stiles counters, feeling his eyebrows draw inwards in annoyance on his face. “You were here in my house talking about – all this bullshit like no one knows you like I do or whatever and then you just disappear without barely saying a word to me the other day and I haven’t heard from you since!”

“What?” Derek demands, almost like he can’t really believe what he’s hearing. “So I have to check up with you every two hours or something?”

“Oh, that’s not what I – fuck off, you know that’s not what I meant!”

On the other line, Derek scoffs. “What am I, your fucking boyfriend?”

The accusation, and even the fact that it comes off like an accusation at all, takes Stiles off guard. He’s defensive, so the first thing he says is, “well, obviously not,” and then kinda wishes he hadn’t said that. Because it’s not obvious, not at all, what their relationship even actually is. He corrects, clearing his throat. “Uh, I mean…you wanna fuck me all you want and go batty when I even talk to my ex-girlfriend even though I’m gay –“

“I didn’t go batty –“

“And don’t think I haven’t noticed you giving Seth dirty looks, too!”

“Bullshit.”

“My point is, you treat me like this is a relationship when we’re together and, like, I get wanting to act like you don’t know me at school and in public and shit, but hey. You could fucking text every now and then.”

Derek is quiet for a moment, and Stiles imagines him up in his dark bedroom pacing across the floor, probably drinking a beer, and most definitely frowning, as is his trademark. “What is this, an ultimatum?” 

“Who said anything about an ultimatum?” Stiles screeches this, practically, voice going up seven registers in two seconds. 

“Like, if I don’t call you my boyfriend we can’t fuck anymore.” 

“You know, I think it’s time you and I both stopped pretending all we do together is have sex,” he says, as there are two knocks on his door, as his father is stepping into the room with a baffled expression on his face. 

Derek says, “what?” At the same time the Sheriff says, “everything okay in here?”

Stiles doesn’t say anything directly to his dad, just uses the hand not holding the phone up to his ear to wave him off and out of the room, which is all the answer his dad needs, anyway. It’s obvious Stiles is arguing with Derek on the phone, so the Sheriff just makes his “I hate Derek” face and closes the door behind him as he leaves. “You’re always saying how I know you like nobody else, and we had this whole big heart to heart the other day and, like, yeah it was sort of a fight but not really? But then you’re all snide and you say, oh yeah, we’re fucking. Like, okay, sure, but that’s not all we do.” 

Derek sounds irritated when he says, “we _are_ fucking.”

Stiles stands up from his chair, takes the phone away from his ear, and kicks the side of his bed. When he puts the phone back he says, “okay, fine, we’re just fucking. Then don’t fucking talk to me!”

“Oh, what? What, what, what? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” 

“Well, you don’t want to be anything else with me, so why pretend?” 

Derek says nothing, maybe not for a whole minute. It’s long enough that Stiles checks his phone screen to make sure that he hasn’t hung up. Then, there’s a sigh on the other line and Derek is a lot more subdued when he speaks. “All this is just about how you want a label.”

“Yeah, fine,” Stiles agrees, rubbing his forehead. “I like labels. I went nuts trying to figure out my sexuality and give it a title because that’s how I am. Now I guess I’m going nuts over this, too. I mean, Christ, Derek, you’re willing to go against your mother’s word just to hang out with me. You think that’s just fucking?” 

He’s cavalier, and an asshole, so it’s no surprise that his response to that is, “well, you’re a good fuck.” 

“And you are an unbelievable fucking ass.”

“Okay, okay,” maybe Derek could read in Stiles’ tone that he was going to hang up, because Derek is more serious, not joking around now. “Just…fuck it. Yeah, I was hoping to see you over Christmas, okay? Not just to fuck but like yeah to fuck, just not to – not only.” It sounds like it’s being pulled out of him with string, like all his vague romantic proclamations do, when he says, “not just that, okay? What do you want me to say? I like you. Not just being inside you or all of that. You. As a person. You…” he pauses, a long pause, so Stiles is kept hanging. “…you _are_ the only one who really knows me, I don’t just say that, I mean it. Maybe that freaks me out. Maybe that freaks the hell out of me, okay? So I…when people get too close sometimes I push back. I’m finding that a bit more difficult with you.”

Stiles bites his lip and stares out his window, where Derek has climbed up before just to come here and be with him. “Okay,” he agrees, not mad anymore. “Yeah, okay. And I wasn’t saying call me your boyfriend or we can’t hang out anymore, I just…”

“Well, fuck it. I guess I am.”

“You are…?”

He says it all gruff, like he’s mad about it, but Stiles knows him better. “Your boyfriend.” 

Stiles presses the back of his hand over his mouth because he doesn’t want to smile, even though Derek can’t see it. He can certainly hear it in his voice, though, when Stiles says, “oh, uh – yeah. Kinda.” 

Instead of going on with that line of conversation, Derek says, “and you’re still too busy to see me over Christmas.”

“Well, you could come over after presents if you –“

“I meant just you and me,” he’s quick to clarify, so Stiles rolls his eyes. 

“Eventually, having a conversation with my dad is going to be inevitable.” 

“Maybe. Look, I, uh,” he hesitates. Stiles knows this is going to be good, and then he isn’t disappointed when Derek says, “I sort of miss you.” 

“I see,” Stiles says. When he pulls the phone away from his ear he does not kick the bed this time – instead, he sort of just lowers his necks and grins at the floor, like he’s won. In a way, he has. 

“I know I’ve said shit all about it since I said it last but. I’m uh – I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you.” Another pause. “I mean to say – you know. I love you.” 

Stiles is quick to say it back, because fuck it, it’s true. “I love you,” he says back, and Derek laughs on the other line. His laugh is different on the phone, sort of muted and muffled. 

“Then you’ll let me climb in through your window on Christmas Eve and fuck you stupid.”

He laughs, and it’s not soon after that that they say goodbye and Stiles hangs up his phone. He sets it down on his bedside table and then sits down, hugging his knees up against his chest and resting his chin on top of them. He laughs, again, without even thinking about it, smiling out his window, the dark night, the stars, the moon. 

Derek Hale is in love with him. Him, of all people on planet earth. The untouchable, larger than life, motherfucking asshole Derek Hale is in love with him. Not anyone else. He’s Stiles’ boyfriend, not pseudo-boyfriend, not kinda, not almost. He is. 

Then Stiles stops smiling, because no one else knows that. Just them. It might only ever be just them.

**

On the first day back to school after Christmas break, there’s an unfamiliar car parked in Derek’s space. Stiles slows to a stop next to it, examining it up and down – while Scott, next to him, does the same.

“Derek is probably going to rear end this asshole for parking there,” Scott says with a smirk, leaning back in his seat as he collects his backpack from the ground. 

But, Stiles looks at the car. It’s an evidently brand new, shiny outside shiny rims immaculate leather interior, Range Rover. There aren’t many kids in school who could afford a car like this, let alone be parking it in the student lot like it was no big deal. “I don’t think that’s some random person,” he counters, popping open his driver’s side door. “I think that’s Derek’s new car.” 

Scott comes around the back of the Jeep to meet Stiles there, jaw hanging open. “That’s Derek’s car? He got a brand new car for Christmas?”

Derek hadn’t mentioned it, actually – not the couple of times they saw each other over break or the dozens of text message conversations they had. But then Derek isn’t much of a bragger and hadn’t mentioned anything that he had gotten for Christmas. When Stiles texted and said his days of navigating a cracked screen were over because his dad got him a brand new iPhone, Derek had just said it was cool. He never said anything about his presents. 

Well here it is. 

Scott crosses his arms over his chest and looks at the car, up and down, as though it disgusts him. “His mother finds out he’s screwing another boy and her response is a brand new Range Rover for him?”

“Apparently she tries to buy him off a lot,” Stiles offers with a shrug. Likely, the only thing that Derek ever gets out of his mother is materialistic bullshit; Stiles knows Derek well enough by now to know that he’d prefer attention and an actual parent. But hey. The car is nice. 

For only the thousandth time since Stiles had come clean about he and Derek’s relationship, Scott gives him a look. That look. It’s the ‘I hate everything Derek is and Derek does and Derek stands for’ look. “He’s such a rich piece of shit.”

“Well,” Stiles says. 

“Well,” Scott counters, raising his eyebrows. “At least it’s not a Lamborghini.” 

Off they go, making their way towards the school where all the kids look a bit more well rested than they do on a regular Monday – the break always does everyone well. Everyone has got new clothes or new jackets or new phones or new bags, strolling around to show it all off. Stiles has got on new socks and a new flannel, too. 

Scott announces he had promised to meet Allison before the first bell, so he goes storming off toward one of the side doors, disappearing into the crowd, and leaving Stiles all by himself. At least, for a moment. 

He hears his name getting called from somewhere behind him, and when he turns, he kinda wishes he had just kept walking and pretended he hadn’t heard it at all. Heather Newman is sprinting at him, full speed, in her cheerleading uniform and everything – her huge tits are bouncing along with her and Stiles genuinely thinks about making a break for it. 

Instead, he lets her catch up to him and sidle along beside him, barely winded in spite of having ran all the way here from across the football field. “Hi, Stiles,” she says, that lopsided grin on her face. “Did you have a good Christmas?”

“It was good,” because it was, “how was yours?”

“Oh, fine.” She answers. She’s got one of those tiny backpacks girls always have, and Stiles wonders where she ever puts her books. “You know, I heard that you and Derek are becoming friends now.”

“Just because we’re not actively beating the shit out of each other doesn’t mean we’re friends,” he corrects – it’s kind of knee jerk, at this point. 

They’re up the steps, almost at the double doors leading to the main hallway of the school. She thinks this is funny, even though it isn’t, so she laughs. “I mean, you guys haven’t had a big blow out for months.” 

“It got old, actually,” he says. 

“Just, people have been talking, you know? About you.” 

Stiles opens up the door and lets her pass through first, to which she seems entirely too pleased about, and Stiles follows in after her. As he does, he’s greeted by a sight that has him stopping in his tracks in surprise. “Oh, yikes,” he says, startled. 

There’s a giant, blown up picture of Derek Hale on the wall right in front of his face. Among the flyers announcing clubs and bake sales on the cork board, there he is, larger than life. It’s him in his football uniform, no helmet, eyes dead set on the viewer with a frown on his face. He looks serious, almost like he’s getting ready to punch someone in the face. 

In white over his chest it reads, _do you have it in you?_ , and then _Beacon Hills High Football_.

It’s the most absurd thing Stiles has ever seen – he wants to burst out laughing at the sight of it alone. Heather notices him staring, and she smirks. “Oh, these. They’re all over the school. Coach is convinced that the scouts are coming at some point over the next couple of weeks and he wants to really ham Derek up.” 

Well, he’s been effectively ham’d. 

Then, Stiles’ eyes trail to the glittering, giant reason that Heather is likely even speaking to him in the first place. The big banner for the Winter Ball, all covered in snowflakes and hearts, taking place on Valentine’s Day – a lucky Saturday night, this year. Blessedly for him, it’s a boys ask girls thing so she won’t be asking him. But not so lucky for her, Stiles has absolutely no plans on asking her. Or anyone. 

“I’ve really got to get to class,” he tells her, and she seems pretty disappointed, but she still smiles at him and bids him goodbye, friendly as ever. Stiles kinda wishes she would hurry up and find some other poor sap to chase after, because he’s in no position to be chased. Least of all by a girl. 

At his locker, as he’s pulling his notebooks out and stuffing them into his bag, he sees Derek down the hall. He’s got his glasses on still, his letterman, his smirk. One thing is notably missing from the usual scene – Theo Raeken. Whittemore is there, and Isaac, and a handful of his other teammates, but Theo is nowhere to be seen. It used to be all those football boys would travel in a huddle. Now it seems the team has been divided in half. Those who side with Derek, in whatever gauntlet has been thrown, and those who side with Theo. 

Derek pulls his sunglasses off his face, maybe just so Stiles can tell that Derek is looking right at him. Stiles ducks behind his locker door and smirks, hiding so no one will see him. 

During lunch, while Scott and Allison chatter about the Winter Ball and what they want to wear and if Stiles should ask someone or not, Derek sits on the opposite end of the cafeteria meticulously pulling his sandwich apart with his fingers. Stiles doesn’t think he’s taken a single bite of that thing; just pulling at the bread, tearing it up until it’s just crumbs on his paper bag. The cheerleaders and the other boys all talk over his head, laughing, Theo all the way on the other end opposite Derek, and Derek just sits there. 

Stiles wonders what he’s thinking about. Him? 

Brave as ever, Stiles walks onto the football field during Derek’s practice hour. All the boys are there, a handful of onlookers on the bleachers, but Stiles doesn’t care very much. He hasn’t had a chance to talk to Derek all day, and now there he is, at the bleachers, drinking Gatorade. He spots Stiles quick, turning all the way to face him with an incredulous look on his face. 

As soon as he’s in earshot, Derek says, “what are you doing here?” He does not sound mad or put out – just surprised. 

Stiles shrugs, coming to a stop six feet away from him. “Haven’t you heard? We’re best friends now.” 

“What?” Derek looks over his shoulder, where Isaac is looking and Whittemore seems interested, but everyone else is simply going about their business. 

“That’s what Heather Newman said.”

Derek gives him a look. “What are you up to, talking to Heather Newman?”

“She seeks me out.”

“Ah,” Derek puts his Gatorade bottle down and gives Stiles his undivided attention. “Did you wanna talk about something?” 

“I saw your posters all over school,” he says, and Derek looks annoyed by this information. 

“I’d rather forget about those,” he says with a smirk, and then gestures to the rest of the team. “A couple other guys did them too. Coach pretty much said it was non-negotiable.” 

“Heather seems to think scouts are coming pretty soon. Is that true?”

Derek gets another weird look on his face, one Stiles can’t quite place. “You and her were really chatting this morning, huh?” 

“I suspect she wants me to ask her to the Winter Ball.”

This gets Isaac even more interested. He had been eavesdropping, so when he hears this, he walks over and smiles, not quite genuinely. “You and Heather Newman, eh, Stilinski?”

“She seems to think so,” Stiles smirks, because it’s funny, hilarious really, for reasons all of these meatheads could joke about but never really take seriously. 

Derek does not laugh. 

“Well, are you going to ask her?” Isaac reaches out and pops Stiles on the back with his hand a couple of times, friendly, the same way he does to Scott. “You could do a lot worse. You’re on a bit of a winning streak – Lydia and then Heather?”

“I don’t know what they see in me,” Stiles jokes, but Derek still does not laugh. This is the moment that Stiles realizes Derek is angry about this. Here Stiles is, waltzing onto the football field, Derek’s turf, boasting about how a girl wants to fuck him. 

He hadn’t intended for it to turn out like this, but it had. He had just come to say hello and make fun of the posters. 

“I probably won’t ask her.”

“What, are you insane?” Whittemore is there, grabbing his own water bottle and giving Stiles a dirty look, like he thinks talking to Stilinski at all is beneath him, yet here he is. “You really would be a homo not to ask her out, knowing she’s into you.” 

Oh, right, Stiles thinks, his heart sinking into his stomach. There is that. Derek looks at him with a frown, reaching down to grab his helmet. “Look, I’m in the middle of something,” he says, and Stiles fidgets - Theo is across the field, not too far, watching this conversation. 

“Uh - okay,” Stiles says, then he turns and heads off and away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming close to the end!!! The chapter lengths are bizarre, I realize - I actually had no fucking clue how many chapters it was so I pulled the number ten out of my ass and decided to force ten chapters out of it either way. So that’s why some are like 20k and some are like 5k, because I’m stopping them at obvious stopping points instead of paying attention to how long they are or are not!!


	9. Character Developmentish

Derek is angry, which Stiles knew already – but he is still surprised when he gets pulled into the janitor’s closet fifteen minutes after leaving the football field. Derek is still in his uniform, sweat on his brow, his hair disheveled from having been in a helmet earlier. He crowds Stiles in and is mad, livid, maybe that’s not even a big enough word to describe it. 

“What are you playing at?” He commands, and Stiles is apologetic. 

“I was just coming to say hi,” he insists, putting his hands up in the air in surrender. “I wasn’t, I don’t know, I wasn’t thinking when I said –“

“No, you weren’t thinking,” he barks, accusatory. “You came marching out there to brag about how the head cheerleader wants to fuck you.” 

“Well, now, hang on –“

“And Heather Newman is a – she’s fucking mean, Stiles, just like all those cheerleaders.” 

Stiles doesn’t know why he says this. It does not help his case. But say it, he does. “She’s always been nice to me.” 

“Oh, I bet she has been,” he snaps, and Stiles takes a step back. Well, as much of a step back as he can in the tight, confined space. 

He takes in Derek’s posture, rigid, the look on his face that Stiles once hadn’t wanted to assign a name to because it seemed too absurd to be true, and he makes a judgment call. Pointing a finger at Derek’s chest, he says, “you are jealous.” 

Derek grits his teeth. 

“You are jealous because I, your homosexual boyfriend, have caught the eye of a woman. With a vagina.” 

“Stiles, you have to go to that stupid fucking dance with her.” 

“Whoa, says who?” He furrows his brow – like hell. 

Derek looks at Stiles like he just might be the stupidest person on the face of the planet. “You just announced to the most homophobic group of boys on campus that the hottest girl in school is into you.”

“Well, I…” he thinks about Jackson saying only a homo wouldn’t go out with Heather Newman, and he thinks about how everyone knows that Derek and Stiles suddenly don’t hate each other anymore and hey they might even just be friends, and he thinks about how everyone calls Stiles a faggot anyway, and he thinks about how he’s…screwed himself. “…uh.”

Derek is angry, again – he reaches out and knocks something off the shelf, maybe just for something to do. It crashes to the floor around their feet and Stiles takes a deep breath, putting his hands on his face. “Stiles, for fuck’s sake.” 

“Well, Christ, it’s just a dance,” he reasons, shaking his head. “It’s just one dance. I mean, for fuck’s sake, you got to make out with her full on just to convince people you weren’t gay, so I think I can –“

“Oh, so that’s what this is? Revenge?”

“Derek, shut the hell up, stop it,” he snaps, and Derek closes his mouth. “What am I, insane? No, it’s not me getting back at you for anything. Believe it or not, this relationship is not a game of chess to me!” 

He only looks mildly embarrassed, because then, he’s right back to being angry about this again. “I don’t like this,” he means it. “This isn’t fair.” 

Stiles thinks that if they keep this up, this will only be the first of very many unfair things to come. “Scouts are coming soon,” Stiles reasons quietly, and that, Derek cannot argue. Yes, the scouts are coming soon, Derek’s future, Derek’s life, something that he has worked his entire life for. It isn’t fair. 

Derek takes Stiles by his shoulders, pulls him in for a kiss. It’s hard, frantic, like sometimes he worries it may be the last time he ever will get to kiss Stiles.

**

Derek Hale, 4:35 PM : Coach is getting worried about all this me vs. Theo bullshit. I am not even the one who’s avoiding him, he’s acting like I don’t exist.  
Me, 4:36 PM : How does that even work on the football field??  
Derek Hale, 4:38 PM : It doesn’t. It’s kind of a big deal that this is happening. It might screw me.  
Me, 4:40 PM : I don’t think so. Theo sucks and you’re actually good. Scouts can’t be that stupid.  
Derek Hale, 4:45 PM : I just keep thinking maybe I should be his friend. Or, try to be. I’m just not that good at lying.  
Me, 4:47 PM : Gag. Oh, by the way – nice car.  
Derek Hale, 4:50 PM: Right. Merry Christmas to me.  
Me, 4:55 PM : You cannnottt walk around expecting people to feel bad for you because you got a 90,000 dollar car.  
Derek Hale, 5:02 PM : Ohhh trust me, I don’t. I wonder if people would feel bad for me if they knew my boyfriend was going to the dance with someone else.  
Me, 5:05 PM : The world’s smallest violin would make an appearance.  
Me, 5:06 PM : Seriously. It’s not that big of a deal. You want Theo off your back?? Pretending to be his friend won’t work. This probably will.

**

“Am I ever going to get to meet this boyfriend, or what?” The Sheriff demands, looking at Stiles from over the edge of a newspaper. 

Stiles cuts into his eggs and frowns. “You have met him. Many times.”

“I mean, meet him as your boyfriend.”

“Didn’t you get enough of an eyeful of him _as my boyfriend_?” Stiles haughtily bites into his bacon, figuring the Sheriff will drop it then and there out of sheer embarrassment. 

To his surprise, the Sheriff does not drop it. He puts his newspaper down, his glasses off, and levels Stiles with a very serious look. “You’re seeing this boy, and the only things I know about him are the bad things.”

Stiles swallows and looks away, focusing on his plate of food. 

“Would it really kill him to be invited to dinner?”

“I think so,” Stiles admits, though he’s not happy about it. “Derek is…”

“If he’s not man enough to come and sit with his boyfriend’s father then he’s not good enough for you,” he says, and Stiles knows he’s serious about this. Stiles and Derek have been managing to weasel their way out of it these past couple of months, but time is up. The Sheriff has put his foot down. 

Stiles is only thankful that Derek’s mother will likely never request Stiles’ presence in the same way. 

After breakfast, Stiles steals away to his bedroom and paces around up there for a few minutes. He and Derek have known each other all their lives, and they have known each other intimately for…nearly five months, now, if one counts that very first kiss outside of Lydia Martin’s house. Stiles tends to count it. 

The point being, he should not be this nervous to call up his secret boyfriend and invite him over for dinner. Still, he is, because Derek is…he’s just Derek. 

Derek answers his phone on the second ring, kinda sounding like he’s just alone in his bedroom fucking off. 

“Hi,” Stiles says, and Derek says hi back. “What are you up to?”

“Wondering when you were going to call me,” he says, and Stiles goes a bit giddy – Derek says things like this like they are a joke, but all the same, they make Stiles feel important. “Just some homework. What are you doing?”

“I just had breakfast with my dad,” he starts, and then he’s pacing around in his bedroom again. “Uh…he was asking about you.”

“I’m sure he was.” 

“Well, I mean, he’s asking about you.”

“Yup…” Derek is not following Stiles at all. 

Stiles bites the bullet. “Can you come for dinner tonight?”

Derek is quiet for a second. He says, “oh.” 

For one mortifying moment, Stiles is sure that Derek will say no. It would be his character after all, to be the bad boy who doesn’t get taken home to meet the parents. Stiles would think that he rated a bit better than his slew of former lovers whose parents never knew he existed, but still; Derek Hale is still Derek Hale. 

It’s a relief, then, that Derek clears his throat and says, “fuck it. Okay.” 

“Okay?” Stiles repeats, breathing out a sigh.

“Whatever, sure. I’ll have to at some point, won’t I? Might as well rip off the band-aid.” That’s one way to think of it. “At least your dad shows some interest in your life.” 

Stiles doesn’t think he wants to touch that statement with a ten foot pole. Since that night where everything had happened, with their parents and how awful it was, Derek has said not a word about his mother or anything that happens in his home life. Which is par for the course, for him, but Stiles doesn’t know what to say when Derek says things like that. Does he want to talk about it? Or does he just want to say it and be heard? 

“Well, is seven okay?”

“Seven is fine, I’ll be there. Should I bring a bottle of wine?”

“Don’t even joke about that,” Stiles snaps, but he’s smirking. Derek can actually be pretty funny, when he wants to be. That is not something he thinks very many people know about him, but Stiles does. “And I also wanted to ask who you’re going to the dance with…?”

Stiles knows that since he’s going with Heather he cannot exactly be mad if Derek wants to ask someone else, because it would be wildly hypocritical even while knowing that Derek is completely livid about the fact that Stiles is going with Heather. But he thinks he’s allowed a little bit of jealousy, from time to time. The girl will likely be absurdly pretty in an absurdly low cut dress, and hey, Derek is the one who’s actually attracted to women. 

“Oh, uh,” Derek sounds uncomfortable. “I was actually thinking I may just not go.” 

That gives Stiles some pause. It gives him a lot of pause actually; he freezes in the middle of his room, jaw going slack. Derek Hale not going to a dance? Derek Hale not leaping at the chance to get embarrassingly drunk in public? Derek Hale not wanting to party? “Why?”

Derek scoffs. “Well, let’s see. My boyfriend who I’m not allowed to say is my boyfriend will be there with one of the many girls I’ve hooked up with in the past, for starters.” 

“Derek, come on. It’s just a stupid dance.”

“And beyond that, I’m pretty sure I’d get drunk and do something stupid. I’m getting tired of doing that, all the time.” 

Stiles is surprised, again. He knows that Derek has been drinking considerably less than he had even when he and Stiles were first going at it, and wayyyy less than he was before Stiles and Derek started going at it – he’s rarely drunk at all, these days, really. But even that said, Stiles has never seen Derek turn down an opportunity to make an ass of himself. “That’s very character developmentish of you.” 

“Well, what can I say?” Stiles can hear the smile in his voice. “I’d hate to mess anything up, with you.”

**

When Derek pulls into the Stilinski driveway in his shiny, brand new car, Stiles is watching and waiting from the front front window. He startles when he spots it, standing up and hurrying into the kitchen, where his dad is drinking a beer and poking at the lasagna in the oven.

“He’s here,” Stiles says, and the Sheriff closes the oven door and sets a timer for ten more minutes. “And I have to remind you, for the zillionth time, he’s not a great conversationalist.”

“Okay,” his dad sips his beer. He is likely imagining all the ways he could torment Derek Hale, with nothing but his words alone. 

“And he’s not great at small talk. And he can come off as kind of aloof. More to the point of being rude.” 

“I know all this.”

“I’m just reiterating,” Stiles waves his arm, as if to encompass all the many dozens of things he has reiterated to his father in the past eight hours since Stiles invited him over. “He was raised by wolves. Just…try not to be too hard on him.” 

“I will behave,” he promises, however falsely, right as there are three hard knocks on the front door. Stiles shoots him a look, before rushing over to pull the front door open, leaving his father behind in his dust. 

Derek is just standing there underneath the glow from the overhead porch light; and he kind of looks different. Stiles can’t put his finger on what it is – he’s wearing his signature dark clothing and his letterman, as always, and his hair is the same as it always is, and he’s still got that smirk on his face. But there’s something different about him, in the way he looks standing there. All the same, Stiles ushers him inside and is pleased to see Derek did not make good on his joke to bring a bottle of alcohol with him. 

Stiles and Derek still are not that couple that kiss or hug on a whim, so instead of any romantic pleasantries, Derek simply takes his coat off and hangs it up, looks around with his hands in his pockets. “Smells good in here,” is what he says. 

“I assume there aren’t a lot of home cooked meals at the Hale mansion.” 

Derek snorts, which is all the answer Stiles really needs. Derek likely lives off of freezer pizza and takeout, so if he weren’t a world class athlete he’d be seven hundred pounds. 

“You’re not nervous, are you?” Stiles asks, reaching out to absentmindedly tug on the hem of Derek’s dark t-shirt so it lays evenly. 

“Not even a little,” he confesses, raising an eyebrow. “Maybe after dinner we can go up to your bedroom and I can get you to say my –“

“Oh, shut up,” Stiles chides, taking him by the arm to guide him into the kitchen. There are no grand dining rooms here, no marble countertops, no fine china – just a little yellow kitchen with a small nook of a dining area, so Derek instantly looks out of place hovering there, taking in all the little details with his eyes. “Dad, he’s here,” Stiles announces this, even though he already had – so the Sheriff turns around, mouthful of beer, and takes in the sight of the man in question. 

His shoulders tense just a little bit, seeing him standing there. It might be that he forgets just how huge and imposing of a person Derek Hale actually is, until he’s there in front of him. He swallows the beer in his mouth and steps forward, holding out a hand for a shake. “Derek Hale,” he greets. 

“Sheriff,” Derek says, blessedly – not just a grunt or a whatever or straight up nothing. An actual greeting. Stiles sighs in relief and leans against the kitchen counter, sucking in a deep breath. 

“You want a beer?” The Sheriff asks, and Stiles knows he’s goading him, instantly, so whatever relief Stiles had just felt goes flying out the window. 

But, Derek laughs. He says, “I’m not that stupid.”

“Good man,” the Sheriff says, even though that’s the dead last thing he thinks about Derek Hale. 

“How about a coke?” Stiles offers, already opening up the fridge. Derek doesn’t say yes or no, just watches as Stiles pokes into the fridge and pulls a can out, handing it over to him without a word.

“Thanks,” he says, then pops it open. Takes a sip. 

They all just stand there in silence for a second, Stiles palming his face, Derek drinking his coke, the Sheriff staring at Derek. More likely than not, he’s looking for the thing about him that Stiles likes so much, because as far as he’s concerned, there is next to nothing to like about Derek Hale. Good looking, yes. Everything else? 

Derek sets his coke down on the nearby counter, tugs down on his shirt as if nervously, and then clears his throat. “I got something in the mail, today,” he starts, reaching into the back pocket of his jeans and producing a crumpled up envelope. Stiles zeros in on it, wondering what possibly could have come in the mail that Derek would feel the need to bring to dinner with the Sheriff. 

He offers it to Stiles, who quickly snatches it up and doesn’t know what he expects to find. Derek leans against the counter silently, watching as Stiles flattens it out so he can read what’s on the front of the envelope, the Sheriff looking over his shoulder. 

When Stiles sees the return address, the fancy insignia in the corner, he freezes. Looks up at Derek. “Derek,” he starts, and Derek shrugs. There is a smile creeping across his face. Stiles frantically pulls the letter out of the envelope and reads the first line – and that is all he needs to read. Dear Derek Hale, we are pleased to inform you that have been accepted…

Stiles grins and looks up to meet Derek’s eyes. “You got in,” he says, and Derek shrugs again. 

“Full ride.” Like it’s no big deal, he says this. 

“Holy shit,” Stiles reads the letter again and again, while behind him the Sheriff demands to know _got in where_? “Holy shit, holy shit.” 

“I guess they liked what they saw,” Derek says, and Stiles tucks the letter back into its envelope gently, flabbergasted at how Derek folded this thing up so haphazardly. Doesn’t he want to frame it, or anything? Hang it up on his wall? “The scouts, I mean.”

Right, the scouts. Stiles had nearly forgotten about all that – they had come only a week ago, to a game that wasn’t even that important, so Derek had said. They called coach and then they were there, on the sidelines, looking like two completely normal men who weren’t very important at all. Derek had played well, and Theo didn’t try to punch him in the face if only because the scouts were looking at him too, and Stiles figured it would go over well. 

He just didn’t know that they would leave, decide he was great, and immediately invite him to go to school there. It was instantaneous. Then again, this is Derek Hale we’re talking about. 

There is no one like him, anywhere else. Not on any football field in America. Not even in the NFL; it’s obvious in the way he moves. 

“What’s going on?” The Sheriff demands again, while Stiles hands Derek back his envelope and wishes that his dad weren’t here at all so that they could at least kiss. As it is, they just share eye contact, and Stiles gets what it is about Derek that had seemed so different, when they first saw each other. 

Happy. That’s what it is. Derek is happy, that rare, fleeting emotion that almost never comes to visit him. Stiles thinks that Derek hasn’t told anyone else on earth this news; maybe Isaac, at best. But his mother likely doesn’t even know about this development yet. 

The very first person he had wanted to tell was Stiles. 

“Derek got into BU,” Stiles explains, and the Sheriff puts his beer down and actually looks impressed. The timer for the lasagna goes off as he offers congratulations, so he bends down with his oven mitts on and scoops it right out, placing it gingerly on top of the stove. 

“Well, Derek, I guess that means you’ll really have to buckle down,” Stiles’ dad says, and he isn’t wrong, so Stiles doesn’t correct him. “No more screwing around.” 

“You’ve got that right,” he agrees, and Stiles stands there and wonders if either of them know that Stiles is part of the screwing around. 

That if the scouts knew Derek were here, or that after that game they were at Derek took Stiles home and to bed, they would never have granted him that full athletic ride. Never. This is not his moment to ruin, so he doesn’t. He eats lasagna and bears Derek’s complete lack of ability to hold a normal conversation with a father figure and laughs at his dad’s jokes and pretends that the night goes well. 

It does go well, as far as meeting the parents can possibly go. But Stiles can’t help but think this may be the last time Derek is ever sitting here in his kitchen, in his house. Worst of all, is he thinks that might be for the best.

**

The day of the Winter Ball arrives nightmarishly quickly; way before Stiles has truly had the time to mentally prepare himself to go on with it. Heather has been, predictably, a little annoying about the entire thing, but then he can’t really fault her for that. If he were really interested in going with her, or even in her at all, he wouldn’t mind. The incessant questions about what he’s going to wear and what time the limo will be at her house and this that and the other thing would be welcome excuses to talk to her.

As it is, Stiles has dreaded it every single time a text notification has popped up on his screen from her, every time they’ve crossed paths in the hallway. And it isn’t because he doesn’t like her as a person, because he does, actually. That’s the problem. 

You don’t do shitty things like pretend to be interested in someone when you like someone as a friend. He feels like shit about it, and Derek, unfortunately, has been absolutely no help in that department. 

Stiles is just pulling himself into his god forsaken outfit when his dad appears in his doorway. “Derek is here,” he says, and Stiles huffs. Of course he is. Why wouldn’t he show up half an hour before the limo gets here? 

Before Stiles can respond to that, Derek does indeed materialize behind the Sheriff. He’s in his letterman. He looks a bit disheveled. Stiles has this fleeting thought that perhaps he’s been drinking. 

“Dad, can we have a minute?”

The Sheriff hesitates. He has yet to let Derek and Stiles be alone in this house since the last time they were alone here – he looks between the two boys like he’s seriously considering saying no. Stiles imparts a bit of a beg with his eyes, because _Christ, dad, this whole situation is completely fucked up and the least you could do is feel sorry for Derek and let him speak to me_. 

With a heaving sigh he steps out of the way, so Derek can come all the way into the bedroom and then close the door behind him. He’s got a look on his face that Stiles recognizes, the shuttered look. Like he doesn’t want Stiles to know what he’s thinking, not even a little bit. 

“You look really dumb in that outfit,” Derek accuses, and here we go. 

“If I were going with you, you wouldn’t think so,” Stiles is quick to counter, and Derek snorts, like the idea is so stupid. Him and Stiles, off to the dance together. How silly. How asinine. “Did you come here just to be petulant, or?”

“Petulant, mostly.”

“Okay,” Stiles turns to face him directly, and he knows that he does not look silly. He looks good, can feel it in the way Derek rakes his eyes up and down, the same look he gets on his face when they’re in bed together. Stiles doesn’t typically dress up, so of course when he does, he looks good. “Well, if I could go with you, I would.”

Derek looks away, frowning. He definitely seems like he’s had a drink or two. Stiles can’t really fault him for that. “I’m not much for big, like, speeches or anything,” he starts, and Stiles puts his hands in his pockets just for something to do with them. “But, I do wish things were different.”

It’s a nice thought. If things were different…well, then again, if things were different, they might not even be together at all. Half the appeal of Derek is all of the things about him that make this relationship near impossible. “I guess it is a good thing you’re not going, after all,” Stiles admits – if this is what he’s like here, who knows what Derek would be like actually at the dance. 

Derek moves before Stiles can even react. He bridges the gap between them, and takes Stiles by his arms the same way he always does, always has, and kisses him. It’s intense, like desperation, like holding onto something he’s terrified of losing, and it seems to last for a long time. 

Them, alone, kissing. Nothing but the sounds of their mouths moving together. 

When they pull apart, Derek is solemn. “All those years I spent hating you and wanting to hurt you so bad,” he clears his throat, looking down, in shame. “I wasted them.”

“Me, too,” Stiles confesses. What a waste. They could’ve been together the whole time. What a waste, what a shame. “Are you okay? You seem –“

“I’m a jealous asshole and I’m not much for sharing,” he says, a sad smile going across his face. “So, no. It’s dumb, I hate the fucking dances, but I wish…”

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees, his eyes going to the familiar pins on Derek’s jacket. The alien, the pizza, the naked girl, the beer bottle. The façade. The image. If only anyone knew who Derek Hale really was, if only anyone really cared enough to know. “Look, they’re gonna be here soon.”

Derek looks at him one more time, up and down, then he runs his hand over his mouth and looks mad, but he won’t say anything else about it. He’s gotta go, because if that limo pulls up with Scott and Allison and Heather fucking Newman in it, and Derek Hale’s car is parked out front, there will be questions. 

As he turns to leave, hand on Stiles’ door knob, he says, “I started taking my anti-depressants.”

Stiles blinks. He hadn’t known that. Maybe that’s something else to explain how strange he’s been acting, as of late. Or, not strange. Just…different. “That’s great,” he insists, really meaning it. “That is also very character developmentish of you.” 

“Well,” Derek clears his throat, hovering there, almost opening the door, but not quite. “Being a piece of shit isn’t so much fun anymore.”

With that, he goes. Down the stairs, out the door, to his car, to drive away, so Stiles can go on a date with someone else. Stiles tries not to think about it, how shitty it all is. 

The limo comes and Stiles get in. They’ve all already been drinking, and the second Stiles is sitting down, Heather is thrusting a glass of champagne at him. There’s a strawberry on the bottom, as classy as it gets. She is wearing the unbelievably sexy dress she had sent him a picture of – seriously, it’s insane. It plunges, almost to the point where it’s uncomfortable, so her high school namesake is out on display for all to see. It’s got a huge slit up the thigh, so Stiles can almost see her underwear, the way she’s sitting, and it’s all topped off with a pair of scary high heels. 

Stiles catches Scott’s eye across the limo, because, holy shit. If he were straight, he’d be shitting himself right about now. This is the hottest girl of all time, and she should absolutely be with someone who would appreciate this dress. Scott silently acknowledges this. Allison looks a bit uncomfortable because there’s a girl stuffed in here with her boyfriend who has got her tits out. 

Stiles downs his first glass, eats the strawberry, and goes onto his next. “Is this the Stiles from the night you were out at Jackson’s until the morning?” Heather asks, raising a single eyebrow. She went out and got her makeup done professionally, and Stiles can tell. 

“Could be,” he admits. 

“You know, being friends with Derek Hale isn’t good for you, I can tell,” she is joking around, just being coy and flirty, totally innocent. She has no idea how right she is. 

When they get to the school, Stiles is a gentleman and helps Heather out of the car, which she also seems bizarrely pleased about. She likely has only dated assholes up to this point. 

Scott gets out and corners Stiles against the door of the limo, while the girls go ahead of them. “She is trying to fuck your brains out of your skull,” he accuses in a frantic whisper, his body flush against Stiles’, his eyes wide. This is clearly very stressful for him – he, after all, is no liar and not a scammer. Stiles however has proven himself to be both of these things, so he just gives Scott a look and pushes him back a bit. “What are you going to do if she starts trying to fuck you in there?”

“What, in the _gym_?”

“Or, she wants to go home early and do it at her house!”

“Or, she’s not going to try anything because she’s a high school girl and not some evil temptress.”

“As if there’s a difference,” he scowls. They start walking a good ten feet behind Allison and Heather, who are talking to one another in hushed tones, likely about Stiles. “She wants you, man. This is so embarrassing…and bizarre!”

“Thanks,” Stiles says, sarcastic. They’re inside the hall, where the dance committee is there in their dresses and outfits to greet them and gesture for them to head inside the gym. 

“I don’t know how you pull these girls. Lydia Martin and Heather Newman.”

“Women want what they can’t have,” Stiles teases, so Scott nearly shoves him onto the floor. “Seriously.”

In the gym, it’s a nightmare. Stiles had forgotten that this is a Valentine’s Day dance, had forgotten it was Valentine’s Day at all. Derek hadn’t done anything and of course he wouldn’t – he probably forgot it was Valentine’s Day, too. There are red hearts everywhere, Cupid floating in the sky above their heads, streamers, glitter as far as the eye can see, and the floor is a sea of red dresses and pink dresses and purple. 

Heather immediately takes his arm and drags him over to the punch, pouring them both a glass. Then, she honest to god reaches into her cleavage and produces a flask. Stiles is amazed there would possibly be room for it in there. Says as much. “You fit that in there?”

She laughs, spiking Stiles’ punch and then her own. “I can fit quite a bit in here.”

Okay, Stiles thinks, as he sips his punch. Maybe Scott is right and she is really trying to get in his pants tonight. Maybe he should dial back his attractiveness, but then he doesn’t know quite what it is that she finds attractive about him. He has no fucking clue what it is about him that she likes. He never knew what Lydia liked about him, either. 

“Oh, God,” she says suddenly, taking Stiles’ arm and herding him off in the opposite direction of where they had been heading. “Don’t look now, but Theo is making an ass of himself.” 

Stiles does look, over his shoulder as Heather tugs him off towards the dance floor. Theo is there, all right, in his usual sea of dumbasses, no date in sight – just him and his fuckoff friends, likely drinking and acting like assholes as they will be long after the dance is even over. 

“I’ve been avoiding him like the plague,” she adjusts the strap on her dress and gives Stiles a conspiratorial smirk. “I’m sure you can relate.” 

“Big time. He’s only been hellbent on making my life miserable since grade school.” 

“Well, no one else listens to him when he talks about you, if that’s any consolation,” she’s being nice to him again, an honest smile and a gentle nudge. It’s baffling Derek would say she’s mean, so it’s obvious he had only done so out of jealousy. “He’s kind of lost all credibility. And people think Derek is the asshole alcoholic. Well, behold.” 

Behold, indeed. Maybe people only ever forgot to hate Theo because Derek was right there, much easier to hate for all his absurd good looks and natural talents and proclivity for being rude and rich. Now, Derek is nowhere in sight. A new target has been acquired. And it seems like Theo doesn’t like it very much. 

“Can you keep a secret?” She asks, leaning closer to him. Her breasts are rubbing against him, and Stiles does his level best to ignore that. “I heard through the grapevine he did not get into Florida.”

“What?” Stiles is aghast. 

“Mmhmm,” she sips her drink to hide her smile. “That’s the only school he applied to because he thought he was so good, they’d have to take him. The scouts took one look at him and said, no thanks.” She laughs, then immediately slaps her hand over her mouth. “I shouldn’t laugh at his misfortune.”

“No, you should,” he disagrees, scanning his eyes over the gym to find Theo again. Now that Stiles knows that, his current state makes a lot more sense. “He’s the only person whose misfortunes we should laugh at.” 

“And you won’t tell anyone I told you?” She grabs his wrist, eyes big in her head. “He’d go ballistic if he found out.” 

“I swear I won’t tell a soul. Who would I tell?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugs, then looks him dead in the eye. “Derek Hale, maybe.”

“I’ve already told you, we’re not that good of friends.” 

She looks at him very seriously, and then smiles like she thinks he’s being funny, looking away to take in the sight of the dance floor at large. Stiles can see Scott and Allison across the gym talking to Isaac and Whittemore, Lydia in the background frantically rearranging a giant Cupid statue. “Do you want to dance?”

It’s not Stiles’ thing, not even remotely close, but she wants to and she’s his date, so he agrees and follows her out onto the floor. The night carries on much the same, with Heather being chatty and nice and bearing the death glares she gets from other girls for wearing that ridiculous dress with a hint of aplomb, as though it not only doesn’t bother her, but makes her giddy to be hated. Theo appears to be the new Derek, drunk as ever and despised for existing, though he still seems to have caught the attention of more than one girl. Erica Reyes, who Stiles had honestly forgot existed, is one of them. 

Maybe Derek had been right about her. She never was actually that interested in him, only what he represented. It makes the feeling he’s had about that whole thing dissipate. He doesn’t feel bad about it anymore. 

Towards the end of the night, Stiles excuses himself to the restroom – which, he should know by now, only ever leads to trouble. In the hallway, the fluorescent lights much brighter than the dimmed string lights in the gym, there are a handful of knuckleheads milling around the lockers. Drinking, it looks like. 

Stiles pays them no mind and intends to just go piss and then head directly back to the gym. These aren’t people he even knows personally; a couple of them are football boys, he knows that much. 

Theo appears from the back of them, sort of as though he’s parting the Red Sea, and Stiles just barely makes eye contact with him. As soon as he does, Stiles quickly looks away because he’s trying to steer clear of that shitfest, and thinks he’ll make it out scot-free, into the bathroom and safe.

Then, “Stilinski.” 

Stiles stops in his tracks. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t just keep walking. Accepting this inevitable fate, maybe. 

The other boys are quieting down, some of them smirking, others looking like they, too, are nervous of what might just be about to happen. Not everyone is actually that shitty, Stiles has learned – very few people actually are, but there are far too many people who will stand idly by and watch. 

“Yeah?” He says, looking around at all of them as Theo approaches him more closely. 

“I just didn’t think I’d be seeing you here tonight, _faggot_ ,” and he says that word the same way he always has said it, with so much hatred it’s a wonder he can get the word out at all. Derek is not here tonight to punch him in the mouth for it. 

Stiles gives him a blank look. There are alarm bells going off in his brain, but he ignores them. “Yes, the faggot that’s here tonight with Heather Newman.” 

Theo is drinking a beer. There, in plain sight, for any teacher or chaperone to see – but he thinks he’s invincible. He takes a long sip, giving Stiles the single dirtiest look he can likely manage, and when he finishes, swallows, he smirks. This is not a friendly smirk. He says, “I’m going to fucking beat the living hell out of you.” 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Stiles puts his hands up and starts backing away, because no thanks, no thank you, not this seven against one nonsense, none for him. “Just relax,” he tries, but it’s no use. It’s been a long time coming; Stiles has spent his entire life getting beat up by Derek Hale, but since that has stopped, Theo has likely been lying in wait, biding his time, waiting for the perfect opportunity. 

He’s an angry, angry kid. Stiles is an easy target. 

Two of them grab him, one arm each, and Stiles tries to fight them off but what’s the use? These kids are on the football team. Stiles would know exactly how much athleticism goes into being on the team, seeing as how he’s sleeping with one of them - they’re literally going to beat the shit out of him whether he likes it or not. 

Out they drag him, through the double doors to the secluded lot where the dumpsters are – no one around to hear or see. Stiles makes a valiant attempt to break free from his captors, but they just hold him down tighter, steadier, while Theo stands right in front of him. Stiles just frowns and accepts his fate, briefly glancing up at the sky in resignation. 

Theo hits him, and it sucks. It sucks a lot. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he says after the first one, spitting out a wad of blood onto the pavement. “What the fuck is this even about?”

Theo hits him again, hard enough so Stiles sees stars for a moment, thinks he might blackout. 

“For _fuck’s sake_ ,” Stiles repeats, tries once again to free himself. There is blood running down his chin that he wants to wipe off, his nose aching, and he’s sucking blood off of his teeth. “What do you want!” 

Theo points a finger, right into Stiles’ face. “There’s something going on with you and Hale, and I want you to fucking admit it.”

Stiles does not miss a beat. He grits his bloody teeth and meets Theo’s eyes, head on. “What are you, fucking crazy.” There’s no inflection in his tone, nothing to betray him at all, and Theo’s nostrils flare, at the balls on Stiles to deny it. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he grabs Stiles by his hair, pulls his face up so they’re looking one another in the eyes. Close, they’re sharing each other’s breath. Maybe Theo is into him, or something. “…ever since you two stopped wrestling with one another, something is different.” 

“What’s different?” Playing dumb comes easy to him, but it also comes with a price. Theo punches him in the stomach so the wind is knocked clean out of him, as he struggles for breath and kicks his legs a bit indignantly. “This is fucking bullshit –“

“It’s not, it’s not bullshit, you think we’re all stupid?” Theo is yelling now. He’s drunk and insane and angry, so he’s shouting, walking around with his hands in the air, while the other boys mostly just stand there like statues, wordless, motionless. They’re not loving this as much as he is. “How ridiculous it is, the thought of the great Derek Hale and Stiles Stilinski being anything but enemies to each other! But I’ve seen the way that you two look at each other.” 

Stiles hadn’t pegged Theo for being particularly observant, but now, he feels like an idiot for not being more careful. An enemy will always notice your faults. Stiles should have known better. And here, held down with Theo about to unearth his biggest secret, he thinks that he’s fucked. Completely screwed.

He does the only thing he can think of – turn the conversation so no more of the truth could possibly come out. 

“This is just about how Derek got into BU and you didn’t even get into the University of Florida,” he accuses, brave for his situation. 

Theo looks at him. He has never hated anyone more than he hates Stiles in this moment, and Stiles nearly regrets having said anything at all. As they share eye contact, Stiles smirks. Wait until Derek finds out about this, he thinks. Wait until Derek finds out what you did to me. 

It’s all the power he’s got left, so Theo hits him. Again, and again. Stiles coughs and spits out more blood, and it gets so bad that one of his dumbass lackeys tries to get him to stop. This is getting out of hand, now. It was funny at first to kick him around but now it’s going too far, he’s completely lost it, they’re going to seriously hurt him. 

Theo won’t listen to them, so then it’s only lucky that Stiles actually has friends who noticed he had been gone for too long, and that wouldn’t you know it, Theo is missing as well. 

“What the _fuck_ is this?” That’s Isaac’s voice, then the sound of several pairs of feet coming towards them all. The boys that had been holding Stiles up let go of him as if he’s caught fire, so Stiles falls on his ass, slumping back against the brick wall of the school. “Have you completely lost your fucking mind?”

“I know that he’s the entire reason all this bullshit has happened,” Theo accuses, and Stiles can see just enough to see that Whittemore is there too, looking flummoxed. 

“Oh, shut the hell up with that,” Jackson hollers at him, shoving him back hard. “You fucking drunk asshole.” 

“Stiles, are you okay?” Allison is in his peripheral, grabbing him and holding his head up. “Jesus Christ,” she says, so it must be bad. One of his eyes is welling shut. 

“Were you trying to kill him?” Scott demands, kneeling down in front of Stiles and grabbing him by his face as well, turning it this way and that. “Stiles, say something.” 

Stiles spits. Allison sort of _yeeks_ and moves away from him a bit. “He’s just mad because he didn’t get into Florida.” 

“What?” Scott is baffled by this, taking Stiles by his shoulders and shaking him just a bit. “Are you delirious?” 

“No, that’s just true,” that’s Heather’s voice, and then her sparkly red dress swims up in his vision, as she’s kneeling down and looking at him closely. “You look like hell.” This is not shaping up to be the fun, sexy night she was planning on, clearly. 

Stiles has no idea what’s going on with Jackson and Isaac and Theo – he only knows that the other boys who all stood around and let him get the shit beat out of him are long gone, so Theo is on his own. Isaac and Jackson won’t beat him up, if only to stay on the outskirts of the drama, but when Derek finds out. 

Oh, when Derek finds out. 

Stiles decides to voice this out loud, leaning his head back on the brick and grinning with his bloody teeth. “Let’s see what Theo looks like after Derek gets done with him,” he warns, and Scott makes a face like maybe Stiles shouldn’t say that. Maybe not. 

Isaac comes over and puts his hands on his hips, but Jackson and Theo are long gone. Maybe Jackson is carting Theo’s drunk ass home, hopefully. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him lately,” Isaac says, while Allison uses the sash from her dress to sop up some of the blood on Stiles’ face. “He’s obsessed with trying to find someone to blame for things not going his way.”

Stiles knows exactly what’s gotten into him lately. He hates Derek Hale and always has and he hates Stiles and always has and he’s figured out that it’s weird, these two people who used to beat the hell out of each other suddenly just not doing it anymore. Derek is acting weird and not drinking like he used to and is on anti-depressants and isn’t so much of a sack of shit that no one notices how bad Theo is, anymore. He’s done the math that to others is absurd but to him has become glaringly obvious. 

And no one believes him, because how could it be? Derek Hale and Stiles. How insane is that? It fucking sucks, most of all because it’s the truth, it’s part of Stiles’ life, it’s part of who he is, and he’s gotta get beat up outside the idiotic dance and deny it all. It fucking sucks. 

Stiles has had the piss beaten out of him and he doesn’t have the energy, in this moment, to keep lying about it. He turns his face towards Heather, whose brow is creased in genuine concern for him. “Heather, I’ve gotta tell you something,” he starts, and Scott stiffens up next to her.

“Stiles,” he warns, but Stiles just talks right over him.

He never really imagined what he’d say if given the opportunity to say it out loud; then, he’s surprised it comes so easily to him. The truth. “Derek Hale and I have been fucking because I’m gay and he’s probably bisexual,” Heather’s lips part, her jaw almost on the ground, “and I asked you to the dance with me because I had to cover that up, but I am. Gay. I am.” 

For her part, Heather is silent and shocked. Allison is the one who verbally reacts to the information, standing up to her full height and shrieking, “what the fuck?”

Scott is up too, while Isaac just stands in the background with his hands still on his hips, eyes wide, but otherwise silent. He seems to be processing the information, about his best friend that he barely knows, after all. 

“It’s true,” Stiles says, leaning his head back against the wall and closing his eyes for a moment. 

“Did you know about this?” Allison accuses Scott, because she’s angry – and not about the fact that Stiles is gay or that Derek isn’t straight either, but about how no one told her. Stiles is one of her best friends, and no one said a word to her about it. 

Scott seems cowed, but then he straightens up and squares his shoulders. “It wasn’t my secret to tell,” and that, Allison cannot be angry with him about, because he’s right. She crosses her arms over her chest and seems to be struggling to keep up with the information dump, how everything is happening all at once. 

“Huh,” Heather finally speaks, still knelt down right next to Stiles on the ground. “When you said you and Derek weren’t friends you weren’t lying.” 

“No, I was not,” he admits, and Heather isn’t upset with him. She just sighs through her nose and shakes her head, like she cannot believe it. 

“But you two hated each other,” Allison starts, gesturing around themselves as if to encompass all the memories these very school grounds hold of Stiles and Derek getting into fights and screaming matches. “You two would…beat each other up. You went from hurting each other to..?”

Stiles shrugs. He doesn’t have an explanation, he just doesn’t. There isn’t a way to explain it, describe it, rationalize it. It just…is. A magnetic pull or some wrinkle in the universe or some other poetic bullshit, the type of stuff he doesn’t have the words for. He could never expect his friends to understand. 

Isaac huffs out a breath and rubs at his forehead, turning on his heel to head off toward the parking lot. For his part, he looks irritated more than anything else, the same look on his face he had when Stiles and Scott had dragged Derek’s drunk ass back into the house that night at Lydia’s – another one of Derek’s messes is his to clean up. “I better go over and tell Derek what’s happened before he finds out a shittier way and makes all those stupid Aaron Hernandez jokes be not _jokes_ anymore.”

Right, on account of the fact that Derek will want to kill Theo when he finds out about this. Kill him. 

Isaac is gone into the shadows, so the others help Stiles stand up, let him lean on their shoulders to get him back inside the school where they can clean him up better and then stuff him into the limo to take him home. 

When they get to Stiles’ house, right as he’s opening up the door, he turns and looks at Heather. “I really am sorry.” Tonight is a night of truths, and this is another that he can’t go on without speaking aloud. 

She waves her hand like it’s all forgotten, in the past already. “Don’t worry about it,” is what she says. There is something in her face that suggests that she feels more sorry for him than she does for herself. Why not? His life is the one that’s entirely fucked, while for her part, it’s only her night that’s been spoiled, and there will be other nights and other boys. 

He gets out and closes the door, watches the limo drive off and away, leaving him standing in his yard, hands in his pockets. There is blood still leaching into his crisp white shirt and he’s dirty and he hurts, but he just stands there for a long time. All the lights are out in his house, his father on the night shift, no one around to see him. 

He has no idea if he’s made a mistake, or not.

**

Stiles wishes he had a deck of tarot cards or a crystal ball or even a booth inside the mall with an actress in silly clothes who could take his hand and read his palm and tell him what to do. He has spent this entire time wishing that; from the day Derek first kissed him at Lydia Martin’s house, where it all started. There were times when he didn’t think so because things felt good, every now and then; but now he does think so.

That it has been a mess. That this isn’t how things are supposed to be. That none of it has been very fair, to Derek, or to himself. The issue is Stiles can’t decide if they weren’t fair to each other, or if the universe conspired against them to put them through hell. 

When Derek materializes like a ghost sometime before five in the morning, Stiles is not surprised. His phone had been buzzing and buzzing, texts going unanswered, all night long – while Stiles had laid in bed and either pretended to be asleep or made a valiant effort at actually being asleep. He hadn’t known it at the dance, or when Theo was beating him up, or when his friends all looked at him like he was insane for all of this; but when he sat up in bed and Derek was in his bedroom, he knew it right then. He knew. 

This whole thing is done. It cannot continue. 

Derek flips on the light switch and bathes Stiles and his injuries in bright fluorescence, so much so that Stiles squints against it, holding his hand out. His good eye, the one that will actually open all the way, takes a second to adjust to it, while Derek stands there in the doorway and assesses him. 

He looks deeply unhappy with what he sees. Stiles has got a black eye, one side of his face completely bruised up, a split lip, and who knows what else. Not even when they were psychotic about hating each other did Derek ever hurt Stiles this bad – so he’s never seen Stiles in quite a state as bad as this one. 

“How did you get in?” Stiles demands, a frown on his face. 

“You did not lock the front door,” he explains, his voice toneless. “Sort of a stupid thing to do, considering the circumstances.” 

“You think Theo would come to my house and try to have a go at me?”

Ignoring that, Derek moves further into the room, closer, so Stiles can see the dark circles under his eyes. He has not slept. “What do you want me to do to him?”

“Oh, _what_?” Stiles pulls the blankets off of his body, revealing his rocket ship pajama pants to the open air – they feel inappropriate, given the scenario. “That is a psychopathic thing to say. I would like it if you did precisely nothing at all to him.”

“Are you kidding?”

“The humor has been beaten out of me,” he gestures to his face. “So, no, no I am not. What I would truly love is if you let it go and never mentioned it to him –“

“Are you fucking _kidding me_?”

“..because if you go over there and go apeshit on him, he’s going to figure out that he’s right. That you and I really are something to each other more than just friendly, and he’s going to fuck your entire life up as if I haven’t done so enough already.” 

In the wake of this, Derek blinks in surprise. He was not expecting Stiles to say any of this, even a single word of it. Likely, he thought he’d come up here and go nuts and Stiles would be vengeful, or something. This isn’t turning out how he thought, at all. “What do you mean, if you haven’t done it enough already?”

Stiles looks around his bedroom, sucks in a deep breath. “Derek, you got what you always wanted and you and I have both always known that I didn’t fit into that. I don’t…fit in to your life goals, I can’t.” 

Derek is shocked. He puts his hands on his hips and frowns, creases his brow, like Stiles is being unreasonable. 

“I can’t be the person who fucks it all up for you.”

“You’re not even close to doing that.”

“It’s _all I’ve done_ ,” he snaps, forceful enough that Derek goes quiet and looks away, shaking his head. “What your mother said, what everyone else knows, what Theo thinks. If what he thinks turns out to be the truth, do you think he’d waste a single second keeping it to himself?”

“Who cares what he does? He has no credibility.” 

“I’ve already told too many people!”

“Who, Isaac? Scott?” He waves it off, like they’re nothing, they’d never tell, not a soul. Stiles wonders what that conversation between Isaac and Derek had been like, last night. What Isaac said about it, what he thinks, what Derek had said. It’s hard to imagine. 

“Heather Newman, Allison Argent,” he continues the list, “my father, your mother –“

“You’re being paranoid.”

“And you’re not taking it seriously enough,” he accuses, and again, Derek is taken aback. Even when they were fighting all the time, Stiles never really spoke to him like this. So serious, angry, sad, all at once. As the silence continues, Stiles turns his body so he’s on the edge of the bed, hands on either side of him, staring down at the floor. “I cannot be the reason you throw everything away, and I won’t let you put that on me.”

“Stiles, that’s so fucking off, you’re completely wrong –“

“Derek,” Stiles starts, and his voice cracks, “you need to get out of here so bad, you have to get out of here. You need to get out of that house and away from your fucked up family, and you need to be in the NFL because you’ve worked your entire life,” he swipes at a tear on his cheek, “and it would fucking kill me, I could not live with it, if I ruined that for you.” 

With a low voice, a shocky facial expression like he cannot believe this is happening, “but it wouldn’t…be your fault.” 

“I guess not directly,” he admits, then looks away because he doesn’t want Derek to see him crying. “It doesn’t matter, you need to leave. My house, my life. Just…I don’t know who we thought we were kidding.” 

Derek doesn’t move at first. He stands there and makes this face Stiles can honestly say he’s never seen before; all the expressions he’s ever seen on Derek’s face, none can come close to this one. Stiles knows that he has hurt Derek, but he can’t really feel sorry for it. Some hurts are necessary. “Are you breaking up with me?”

“Yeah,” Stiles shrugs, won’t meet Derek’s eyes because he doesn’t want to see the look on his face. “Everything just got so…”

Derek does not say anything else. He turns around and leaves before Stiles can even finish that sentence, and he might just be angry with Stiles for all of this, or angry at himself, or just angry because it’s an emotion that comes to him easily. It has come to him easily his entire life, and feeling anything else is what’s difficult. 

It isn’t fair. It is the ten thousandth thing about this entire thing that isn’t fair. 

When his dad gets home maybe a half hour after Derek has been gone, he comes directly upstairs and finds Stiles in his bed still, crying. He says, “I heard you got into a fight at the dance?”

He sits up, so the Sheriff can take full stock of his injuries, from head to toe. “An ambush is a better way to put it,” he sniffles and wipes at his eye, “Derek and I broke up.”

“And he did _this_ to you?” He demands, always ready to believe the worst possible thing about Derek Hale.

“No, absolutely fucking not, dad,” Stiles snaps, and his father doesn’t even scold him for the attitude. “Theo Raeken did, and Derek and I…it just…” his chin wobbles and he can’t quite find the words, so he just cries and shrugs his shoulders, as though that somehow encompasses the emotion itself. “I just didn’t want to fuck everything up for him.”

It is not a surprise when his father starts demanding the names of who else was there, if Stiles had told the principal, who saw this happen, but Stiles just …. can’t. 

“Dad, please, just –“ he looks away, out the window. The sun hurts his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about that, I don’t care about those boys, I don’t care.” 

It takes a second, but the Sheriff realizes he’s not going to get any kind of police report out of this situation. He comes and sits down on the bed next to his son, putting his arm around his shoulders, pulling him in close so Stiles can cry into his uniform shirt. 

“I love him so much,” he confesses around a deep breath, “I can’t ruin it.”

His dad holds him close, and sighs through his nose. “I know,” he says, even when he cannot imagine this feeling, can’t even begin to fathom it. To love someone and to know that it is the love itself that will screw them, in the end. 

“I really hurt him,” he says this because it’s shameful and he has to tell someone, anyone, and his dad sighs again and doesn’t know what to say.


	10. What Doesn’t Kill Us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added the extra chapter because I thought the ending fit better as its own unit than as a part of this chapter!!

“Just like that?” Scott asks from the passenger seat on the way to school the following Monday, eyes big in his head. “You broke up with him just like that?”

Stiles grips the steering wheel harder and shrugs. “What the hell am I supposed to do? Sit around and wait for things to get worse?”

For someone who has spent the last several months banging on about how much he hates Derek and what a terrible idea their whole relationship was, Scott is surprisingly put out by this information. 

“I just thought you two were serious.”

“We were.”

“So, then, I don’t get it.”

Stiles turns into the school parking lot and he wants to talk about anything else on planet earth aside from this fucking subject. He’ll take STI’s or famine or genocide for 500, Alex. “Everything was going to shit,” he starts, and Scott scratches at his face and frowns like he still does not get it. 

“I thought you said he was drinking less and started taking his medications.” 

“Well, sure, but…” he trails off, shaking his head. “His whole life was going up in flames around him, we were just ignoring it and acting like things were better.” 

Scott makes a face, the Jeep slowing to a stop in Stiles’ parking space. “Just because Theo Raeken figured out you guys might be banging?”

Stiles kills the engine and thinks about punching his steering wheel. “Yeah, and because the team was going to shit and everything hinges on Derek maintaining his full ride to Beacon.”

There is a long silence, where Scott stares out the windshield like he’s weighing every angle of the situation, adding it up in his head. Derek’s shitty home life and his shitty father and the shitty fucking existence he leads and how desperately it needs to be over so he can go off and become who he’s always dreamed of. He comes up with the same conclusion Stiles had. “That sucks really bad,” he says, reaching over and giving Stiles a squeeze on the shoulder. “I’m sorry.” 

“Yeah,” Stiles doesn’t feel very much like crying again, not here, not now, so he shrugs and won’t say anything else. 

A shiny black car pulls in right next to Stiles’ and Stiles sits there and refuses to turn his head. Scott purses his lips and looks uncomfortable. “Please tell me he’s not in that car with a girl,” Stiles says, voice low; Derek is a lot of things, and honestly, vengeful is one of them. It would not surprise Stiles is the least if, in the process of licking his wounds, he went out and got himself some new girlfriend to make Stiles feel like shit. 

“He’s alone,” Scott assures him, so Stiles breathes out a sigh of relief, listening to Derek slam his door shut and pad off towards the school. He does not try to corner Stiles or talk to him or do anything, really. He just walks off and away. It’s as much of a slap in the face as anything, but what does Stiles expect? “Yikes. That was frosty.”

Stiles makes a face at him and climbs out of his own car, knowing that the worst is yet to come. 

Stiles sees Derek in the hall before first period, like he nearly always does. While Stiles is opening up his locker, Derek stands with his football buddies and seems entirely untouchable. From the way he’s carrying on, laughing and making merry, you’d never think he just got broken up with. But then, that’s Derek’s entire M.O. 

He has never once let any of those people know what’s going on in his life. 

Stiles slams his locker closed and makes his way to first, doing his level best to ignore Derek as he walks right past him to the staircase. Derek barely looks in his direction, and Stiles pretends that that doesn’t bother him, not at all. 

At lunch, Stiles sits with his back toward where Derek is holding court with Chinese takeout, just so he won’t have to be privy to all the ways Derek is acting like he’s doing just great. Stiles is not doing just great. Not even close. 

“Maybe you’re better to be rid of him,” Allison says, maybe just trying to make him feel better, maybe genuinely meaning that. “He’s…no offense, but he’s not the best.” 

Stiles pulls his peanut butter and jelly out and wants to throw it at the wall. “Maybe.”

“Yeah, Stiles,” Scott joins in. “It was never actually for the best, you know?”

His friends only mean well, but right now, Stiles sort of wants to shout in their faces that they don’t know what they’re talking about. They don’t know the first thing about he and Derek, they never had any fucking clue what happened between them, what it was like, how Derek was when there was no one else watching them. 

“It’s not like you ever could’ve been with him, like, for real,” Allison bites into a carrot, gesturing towards Derek and his band of loyal followers like it’s so obvious, in the harsh light of day. It never could have worked out. Just look at him. Look at Stiles. “Maybe now we can find you a real boyfriend.”

“Obviously not _right now_ ,” Scott corrects quickly, but Stiles says nothing. “Because we’re healing.”

“Right. But then later,” she insists, and again, Stiles has nothing to say to that.

The truth is, Stiles has no interest in anyone else. There is no one like Derek Hale. 

English class is likely the worst of it. Derek is off in his assigned corner, sunglasses on, leaning back in his seat like this is all beneath him and he could care less – even though Stiles knows it’s his perfectly maintained and chiseled image, it still hurts him to imagine that he really doesn’t care. Stiles takes his seat quickly and keeps his head down, while beside him, Brian does a double take. 

“Holy shit,” he says, turning his body fully towards Stiles. “I heard Raeken went bananas on you at the dance, but…holy shit.” 

“Yup,” Stiles pulls his notebook out and clicks his pen a couple of times. Out of the corner of his eye, he can tell Derek is listening to this conversation. “He got me.” 

“That kid is…disturbed,” he offers, maybe as consolation. “You know what he was saying to me the other day?”

Brian is on the football team, so of course, he would know firsthand what Theo says behind closed doors. And the locker room, as we all know, is the prime location for boys and men to say shitty fucking things.

He lowers his voice and leans across the aisle towards Stiles, this incredulous smile on his face like what he’s about to say is hilarious. “He’s been going on about how you and Hale are, like, fucking or something.”

Stiles raises his eyebrows and feigns ignorance, shock, humor. 

“He’s the homophobe, I could care less,” he insists, which is true. “But just…you and Hale. Isn’t that nuts?”

“Totally circus elephants,” Stiles agrees, smirking, practiced. His eyes flit over Brian’s head, to where Derek is sitting and tuned into this. He’s got no expression on his face, eyes hidden behind his sunglasses, so it’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking. “That’s why he got me at the dance. It was another of his homophobic tirades.” 

“Meanwhile, you were there with Heather Newman.”

“Right?” Stiles turns his body and faces his book again, frowning down at the page. 

In the parking lot, Stiles is alone because Scott is going to Allison’s house after school. He walks right up to his Jeep and has every intention of flying into the driver’s seat and speeding his way out of there before Derek can even show his face. Unlucky for both of them, Derek is right there, his trunk opened as he stuffs his football bag into the depths. 

He glances at Stiles, then looks away; Stiles honestly thinks that he’ll just get in his rover and drive away, not to be heard from at all. He’s in the middle of deciding whether he wants that to happen or is desperate for Derek to say anything at all to him, mean or not, shitty or not, honest or not, when Derek pipes up. 

He slams the back of his truck and leans back against it, as Stiles is half-sprinting to avoid him and to duck into the space between their two cars. “Stilinski,” he greets, but different from the way he said it when they were together, and even different from the way he said it before they ever were. This is a new inflection in his voice that Stiles cannot say he’s familiar with. He is smirking, leering almost, sunglasses still on so Stiles can’t begin to hope to figure out what’s going on behind them. 

“Uh,” Stiles brilliantly starts. Then, he tries to escape, heading toward his door again. 

Stiles had figured that Derek, who is a person who has been hurt by people he trusts so many times over in his most formative years, would not be able to emotionally handle a breakup the way that a healthy, rational person would. He knows that Derek is depressed and maybe more mentally ill than just that, and he had figured that he would be…hard to deal with, after the fact. 

Derek sits up straight on the back bumper of his truck, and smirks bigger. “I saw you talking to Brian, earlier.” 

This, for whatever reason, stops Stiles in his tracks. He looks around as if making sure no one is there to hear them, then focuses his attention on Derek. “Uh, yes?”

Derek shrugs. It is not a casual shrug. “I just wonder what you two were talking about.”

Stiles has no reason to lie. “How Theo beat me up on account of homophobia,” he says slowly, not following where this is going. 

“Oh, is that all?”

“Yeah, that’s all,” Stiles regards him. Fully, head to toe, and even though he can’t see his eyes, he makes a judgment call. “Have you been _drinking_? At _school_?”

Derek does not deny this, or even give it a response at all, which really is all the response Stiles needs. Yes, yes, he has been drinking at school. All day long, most likely. “That’s not really any of your business.” 

“Then, how is it your business who I do or don’t talk to and about what?” He doesn’t know why he’s giving into this argument – it is obvious and has been from the get-go that Derek just wanted to argue with him because it’s better than not talking at all, but Stiles is powerless to stop it. 

“I just wondered if maybe you were trying to fuck him, too.” 

Stiles’ jaw nearly falls off of his face. “What did you just say.” 

“I said –“

“I heard you, you fucking asshole,” he snaps, so upset he wants to reach out and slap Derek clean across his fucking face. Wipe that stupid smirk right off of it, key his car, do just about anything aside from just stand here like a fucking idiot, to let him say something like that to him. “You are being cruel because it’s all you know how to do when you’re hurt,” he accuses instead, and turns on his heel, to march up to his driver’s side door. 

“You are one to talk about what is or isn’t cruel,” Derek says back, standing up to his full height and looking like a kicked dog. He is a kicked dog, after all. As a result, lashing out is all he knows. 

Stiles pulls his door open and glares. “You should not drive yourself home,” he says, and then climbs in and slams the door behind him. Backs out while Derek stands there and watches him with his arms over his chest, while Stiles drives off and away.

He is so upset he actually does punch his steering wheel, this time. It doesn’t do him any favors to know precisely why Derek is acting this way or why he would say something so shitty. The fact is, he said it, and it had hurt his fucking feelings and made him feel small and…hated. By the one person who Stiles couldn’t stand to be hated by.

**

Derek does not approach Stiles that way, again. Mostly, he steers clear of the other boy as though Stiles has contracted a highly contagious disease – and that, although it sucks, is much better than the alternative. Stiles couldn’t take Derek talking to him like that more than once, and Derek may be irrational and hurt and angry, but he’s not truly a shitty person. He had seen the look on Stiles’ face after he said that. To suggest that Stiles was just simply working his way through the football team…a rich accusation, coming from someone who has systematically been working his way through the female population of the school. Shitty, all the same.

They catch each other’s eyes every now and again, but Stiles doesn’t even like that much. Derek is nearly always drinking or at least he seems to be, nearly always smirking that shitty way he used to all the time, nearly always surrounded by people Stiles hates. In more ways than one, Derek has turned around and become a stranger. 

It’s painful in a way he doesn’t expect his friends or even his father to understand, so he doesn’t waste time talking to anyone about it. He has no one to talk to at all. It’s only fair; after all, Derek has never had anyone to talk to, except for Stiles. 

Stiles hasn’t been to any of the games since breaking up with Derek, but he does get dragged to one of the after parties at his friends’ insistence that he finally do something else aside from go to work or do homework after school. It has been a long time since he’s done anything social, after all, and one of the few social occasions up for option has to be something where Derek Hale will almost certainly be in attendance. There’s almost no social occasion Derek Hale wouldn’t be at, so Stiles bites the bullet and goes to Lydia Martin’s house, where all his troubles started to begin with. 

People aren’t too surprised to see him at these things anymore, considering he had forced himself through several of them during his time with Derek Hale, so he doesn’t get the stares or the double takes like he used to. Now, people either ignore him or simply say hi and go about their business. 

Stiles drinks PBR because the mango white claw in the cooler reminds him of Derek’s bedroom. He looks out the back sliding doors and sees the pool that reminds him of Derek kissing that sophomore girl on the first night. He sees a half empty bottle of Maker’s Mark and remembers how Derek would taste after drinking too much of it. 

He drinks his beer and hangs back in the kitchen, the place Derek Hale is least likely to be spotted. But then he turns his head to look out the kitchen window and catches Derek’s eye – through the glass, Derek’s features illuminated by string lights. He had been laughing. When he sees Stiles, the façade drops, momentarily. Derek frowns and looks surprised, confused, upset. 

Then, quickly, like it had never happened, Derek looks away and goes back to laughing with his friends. Stiles had expected nothing more, and nothing less. 

He is not having very much fun, here, but he had promised Scott and Allison to make a real effort to be social and to have fun. It’s not working, but whatever. He’ll just drink more and maybe it’ll start to be less miserable, to be here. 

A girl, another cheerleader as his luck would of course have it, approaches him. He thinks it’s that Sam or Sophie girl who had been circled in Derek’s yearbook and hates him, as a result of it, but he can’t be sure. “Hi, Stiles,” she greets, and Stiles says hi back. “Your face is looking really good these days. You know, since Theo smashed it in.”

“That’s my favorite topic of conversation,” he says, sarcasm dripping from every inch of his mouth. “The time I nearly got beat to death by a homophobe at the Winter Ball.” 

She is not deterred by his foul attitude, like girls, for whatever reason, never are. “Well, you look like that never happened.” 

“Thanks.”

“You know, you and Derek Hale –“

“I cannot even begin to tell you,” he starts, after finishing his beer, “how much I am sick to death of hearing about Derek fucking Hale.”

“Oh, same,” she says, and Stiles wants to tell her to go away so badly, but like Derek has said – he’s not actually that mean. “Just, the way people have talked about you two.”

“How’s that?” He doesn’t miss a beat, leaning down into the cooler that he’s been hovering next to the entire time, pilfering another beer, opening it. Across the room, Scott is watching this entire interaction taking place. He is probably wondering why, yet again, Stiles is talking to a cheerleader who clearly wants to screw his brains out. 

“One second you hate each other, the next, you’re friends, the next, you hate each other again,” she leans her chin into her palm, interested, dying for the gossip. “Is that true?”

Stiles chooses his words very carefully. He has, after all, been drinking. “Derek and I have known each other since we were kids,” he offers, and she nods like she knew that already. “We have never gotten along. We never were friends, people just…” he wants to say they never really saw them, or they never really knew, or anything that would be the truth. He wants to say that they were something else. “…wanted to think something that wasn’t true because it was more interesting than what really was.” 

She nods, again. “Oh, that’s not fun”

“The truth rarely is very fun,” he shrugs. “Honestly, I could care less about the guy at this point.”

Her brow furrows, because although people believe cheerleaders are stupid and vapid, the truth is, they’re more perceptive than anyone gives them credit for. “You about bit my head off when I brought him up at first.” 

Stiles laughs. It’s not a funny laugh. “Oh, right. Yes, I suppose I do hate him.” 

“Who doesn’t?” This is definitely Sam from the yearbook. She confirms this even further when she says, “you know, I hooked up with him once.” 

“Oh, did you?” Stiles does not want to hear about this. He finishes the beer he had only just opened, bends down, gets another. He’s going for a record. 

“Big mistake,” she pops her cherry red lips and leans a bit closer to him. “He took me up to his gross bedroom with the unwashed sheets,” Stiles drinks, “and told me all this bullshit about how bad his childhood was to get me to be all, I don’t know, sympathetic towards him,” another long drink, Stiles screwing his eyes shut, “and then he used that to get into my pants and then, just like, walked me downstairs and basically kicked me out.”

Holy shit, Stiles thinks, polishing off another huge sip. Is that what Derek did to him, too? Is that what Derek fucking did to him, too? Told Stiles his sob story, his poor little rich boy routine, just to fuck him? It’s eerily familiar, and Stiles wonders, if he went through that yearbook and talked to all those girls, would they all parrot the same story? 

He pinches the bridge of his nose. It is a genuine feeling, a genuine truth, when he says, “that fucking asshole.” 

“Right?” She moves even closer to him. “All those football boys are the exact same, in the end. I’m kinda bored of it.” 

“Oh, are you?” Stiles is barely listening, shaking his head and glancing at Derek through the window again. He does not look back. 

“I think everyone always likes you even though you’re a little prickly because at least you all did us the service of beating Derek up every now and then,” this is a joke, but she sort of means it, and Stiles gives her a look that he can’t quite tell what it is. Then, he quickly slaps a smile on his face and drinks some more beer. Fuck it, at this point. 

“I never actually won a fight.”

“Oh, well,” she waves her hand. “He’s huge.”

“Yeah,” he pauses. He thinks about how both of them know exactly just how huge, in more ways than one, but she does not know that Stiles also knows that. Maybe because he’s a masochist, or because he’s just drunk enough to hate himself this much, he asks, “what was the sex like, anyway?”

She puts her hand over her mouth to disguise a giggle, at Stiles’ forthrightness, and then pulls it away to smile with all her teeth at him. “I guess that was the one part of my encounter with him that wasn’t so bad.” 

Stiles is fucked in the head, asking other people what it was like to sleep with his now ex-boyfriend. The feeling he gets in the pit of his stomach at imagining it is the one that he deserves for asking in the first place. 

She must have had at least a couple of mixed cocktails, because she says the single most bold thing a girl has ever said to him before. She leans closer to him, misreading Stiles’ body language and his general attitude, and says, “I still think I’d rather be with you.”

Stiles looks at her. Looks at the party. Looks at the beer in his hand. At Derek out the window. He could say a lot of things in response to this, all of them lies, all of them to spare her feelings, or some of them to hurt her feelings just enough to get her to back off. But he thinks that he’s out of the energy for that type of a thing anymore. 

These past few weeks have been a nightmare, a test on his self-control. He’s sad and drunk at stupid Lydia Martin’s house, and fuck it. Just…fuck it. 

“You know what?” He says, turning his body to look at her full on. God only knows what she’s expecting him to say, but it is sure as shit not what he ends up saying. “I’m gay.” 

She rears her head back, frowning. “If you don’t like me, you could just –“

“No, no, no,” he puts his hand on her shoulder. “You are really pretty and cool and smart, I’m just gay.” 

Sam, or honestly whatever her name is, makes another face. She still does not believe him. Stiles removes his hand and finishes off his beer, be it the sixth or seventh he honestly has no idea, and tosses the empty can aside. He holds his arms out and starts shouting. “That’s right. I’m _actually_ gay,” he says, so some people around him stop talking and notice him. Some people still don’t, so he drunkenly climbs up on top of the kitchen island he and Sam had been leaning again, just his knees first, and then he stands up. 

He’s tall, so he has to bend his neck down low so he doesn’t smash his head into the ceiling. 

“I’m gay,” he shouts, loud, so nearly the entire party goes silent. Out the window, Derek Hale is standing there, lit cigarette in his hand, frozen still, watching him. Stiles knows he can hear, that everyone can, and he can’t find it in himself in this moment to truly give a fuck. “What Theo Raeken says about me is true, I’m a faggot. Okay? That’s why he beat the hell out of me at the dance. Because I’m gay.” 

There’s a silence. Sam is embarrassed to be standing too close to him and this display, so she’s inching away. Everyone is staring at him. He has made a spectacle out of himself. 

Scott stands up so fast the stool underneath him goes flying, and he’s clapping. Hard and loud. “Yup,” he says, while Allison stands up next to him and claps, too, even though she’s evidently embarrassed to be doing so. “That’s right.”

Stiles shrugs, as some of his other classmates half heartedly join in on the clapping. Lydia is among them, a frown on her face, as she slowly and deliberately claps. And Brian, actually, who maybe is thinking how weird that conversation they had had is in hindsight now, and a puzzled looking Isaac, and Erica Reyes, and Heather Newman. The others just stand there and stare and try to figure what they think about all this, some of them slowly joining in with the clapping.

Then, the back door opens and Derek Hale walks inside. 

People give him a bit of a wide berth. He’s still smoking a cigarette, in the house, and takes a drag right as he’s walking up to Stiles on top of the kitchen island. “What are you doing, Stilinski?” He asks, like they barely know each other. 

“What am I doing?” Stiles repeats. This is the most drunk he’s ever been in Derek’s presence, and Derek notices instantly, looking him up and down with a frown like he does not like what he sees. It’s rich, this judgment, coming from him. “I’m being my authentic fucking self.”

“Can you get down from there before you fall and break your neck?” Derek asks, nervously looking around to see if anyone else thinks this is the most unhinged behavior they’ve ever seen. Many other people think that, except for perhaps Scott, who is too busy being supportive to notice how insane it all is. 

“I’m busy telling the fucking truth,” he continues, even as he slides down onto his ass so he can safely step down from the island, onto the floor, where everyone sort of parts for him. Derek stands right there, close to him. “You can hurry up and call me a faggot in front of everyone, now. It’s in your best interest.”

With that, Stiles walks away. Derek does not follow him, of course he doesn’t; how would it look? 

“I don’t say that word,” Derek tells the quiet party at large, as everyone stares at him, as Stiles is walking away into the next room. 

Stiles turns around, after there’s a good fifteen feet between them – half a kitchen, a foyer, and half a living room. Derek tosses his lit cigarette away into the sink and frowns at him. He is not impressed with this display, not in the least. “I fucking hate you, Derek Hale,” he says, thinking about what Sam had said to him about Derek’s tactics for getting people to sleep with him. In this moment, he thinks he means it. Derek grits his teeth. 

Everyone is watching him, so there is not a whole lot that Derek can say back to him. He comes up with something, anyway. “You are drunk,” he accuses, and Stiles laughs out loud. 

Laughs so hard he puts his hands on his knees and keels over from the force of it. “Is Derek Hale going to tell me to sober up?” 

“Okay,” Scott appears, a nervous smile on his face, skirting past Derek and towards Stiles. He has finally caught onto the fact that this is not good. “Maybe we should go.” 

“Maybe,” Stiles’ voice is sarcastic, but he agrees with the sentiment. He really should get out of here before things get anymore out of control. 

Allison and Scott take one arm of Stiles’ each and start guiding him away, to the front door where they will likely park him on the porch to sit and wait for an Uber to come collect him. 

It is unbelievable that after the front door has been closed and Scott gets onto his phone to order the car, Derek has the balls to follow him outside. He closes the door behind himself and has got a beer in his hand, looking at the scene in front of him. Stiles leaning against the porch railing, Allison next to him with wide eyes. 

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Derek accuses in a sharp whisper, scrunching his eyebrows together. 

“Why, because I wanted to tell the truth for once?” Stiles has never thought this, not once in his life, but he wants a fucking cigarette. “What I said has nothing to do with you, it’s my secret to tell, because I was sick of carrying it around. I know who I am, do you? Huh, asshole?” 

Derek cocks his head to the side, his eyes so angry. So angry. Allison is standing there sort of speechless, looking between Derek and Stiles as though she’s trying to imagine how these two boys ever got on, let alone kissed and all that. 

“You have been so busy your whole life making yourself up, you don’t even know who you are anymore,” Stiles is being mean. He can hear himself being terrible, speaking to this person who he has loved so much like he’s…nothing to him. Nobody. “The amazing Derek Hale, all his money and his bullshit!” 

“It is incredible to me that you can stand there and act like I’m the one who hurt _you_ , not the other way around,” Derek hisses, and then finishes his beer. It’s in a glass bottle, and he tosses it aside, smashes it. Stiles flinches, not because he’s afraid that Derek would ever touch him, but because this has gotten out of hand and he hadn’t meant for it to be like this. 

“Hey,” Scott says, coming to stand in between the two of them. “Just cool off, okay, Derek?” He, for one, still thinks Derek would hurt Stiles given half the chance. 

“I don’t remember being the one who fucked off!” 

“For you!” Stiles says, indignant. “I fucked off _for you_!” 

Scott is nervous. He looks between the two of them again and again, like any second a punch will be thrown. 

“Maybe you should go back inside, Derek,” Allison suggests, reaching out to put her arm in front of Stiles as if to keep Derek away from him. 

Derek looks at them, and he frowns. “And you get your friends to treat me like I fucking hit you, or something.”

“That’s not fair,” Stiles says at the same time as Scott says “can you blame us?”

Derek reaches into his pocket. He pulls out a pack of cigarettes, shaking his head as he snags one out and holds it between his fingers. It’s as though he needs it to give him the courage to speak. “You really hurt me, you know?” 

Stiles goes quiet. 

Derek lights up, takes a deep drag. “You hurt me that way and then you act like I don’t exist.”

“I thought that’s what –“

“You could’ve talked to me about it, instead you just – fucking treated me like that.” 

“But I…” Stiles shakes his head, Derek has got it all backwards. Then, maybe Stiles isn’t allowed to say that he didn’t hurt Derek. Derek says he was hurt, and Stiles does not get to say that he wasn’t. “Everything was…fucked.”

Derek breathes the smoke out through his nose and looks sad. Not angry, or indignant, or arrogant. Just sad. “Everything in my life has always been fucked. You were just the one thing I had that wasn’t, and you pushed me away.” 

With that, Derek throws the cigarette aside, and goes back in. The sounds of the party suggest no one was listening, no one at all, so once again Derek has gotten away without anyone knowing that he and Stiles are anything to one another. 

Stiles stands there and feels chastised, small. 

Allison clears her throat and says, “ouch.” 

“He’s just upset,” Scott says to Stiles, as if to wave him off, like he didn’t really mean all those things. But of course he did, whether he was upset or not. “He’s just upset, is all.”

The Uber comes. Stiles sits in the backseat and stares out the window, crying and trying to hide it even though everyone in the car knows that he is.

**

“Hey, uh – it’s Stiles. Stilinski. Look, I just kinda wanted to talk about last night? I was drunk, which normally I am not, I know, but I had way more to drink than usual and I was feeling…well. I don’t know if you thought all this has been easy for me, or what? It hasn’t been. And now I realize maybe I fucked up and it wasn’t fair of me? I don’t know, I just wanted to talk to you, because…you know you always used to say I’m the only one who ever really knew you? Well, maybe you were the only one who ever really knew me, all the way. Everything got so turned around. I just. Am feeling very honest these days. And. Honestly. I miss you like…crazy. So…call me back?”

Stiles hangs up the phone. He has listened to Derek’s voicemail greeting dozens of times in the past six hours, calling and calling, only to hear the same thing again and again. _This is Derek Hale, leave a message_. At this point, Stiles is surprised Derek hasn’t blocked his number yet. 

When his phone does finally buzz, Stiles’ heart nearly leaps out of his chest – but it’s just Scott. Stiles sighs and answers, leaning back into the couch. 

“Hey,” Scott says. “I thought you might want to talk.”

“Oh, right,” Stiles smirks to himself, though nothing is very funny. “Because I went fully unhinged last night.” 

“You had a few too many,” Scott concedes. “But you know what? Nothing you did was so bad. All you did was, you know, come out. It’s a good story.”

“Some day I will laugh about it, but for today, I feel like shit.” 

“That’s the hangover.”

“And the fact that maybe I don’t always know what’s best,” he shakes his head. “You know I broke up with Derek because I thought it was the right thing to do. I did, not him. I never asked him. I just did it. Because I think I know everything.” 

“Most times you do,” Scott says slowly, and then sucks in a deep breath. “You know I hate him, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well…with that in mind. I do think he made some points.” 

Stiles smiles in spite of himself. “He did. He really did. It would be a first, but he did all the same.”

“And I feel bad because I really did think he might hit you last night.”

Even though Scott isn’t there in person to see it, Stiles waves that thought away. “You’ve seen us physically fighting enough times to be nervous about it. You’ve never seen us be together in a different way, but he’d never in a million years hit me now.” 

“I get that now,” he admits, and Stiles wonders what it is that Scott saw between Derek and Stiles that has convinced him. “I guess if nothing else, it’s cool you’re, like, out now.”

But without people knowing about he and Derek, it still sort of feels like he’s halfassing it. Like he’s only halfway out of the closet, one foot in, one foot out, and until people know what Stiles is to Derek, he’ll never be all the way out of it. 

At school, word has spread about what happened at Lydia’s after party, and now everybody knows. In a way it is truly freeing, but in another, he feels like a lab rat. Everyone stares at him and whispers about him, and yes some people are very supportive, but other people just stare and Stiles knows that they think he’s gross or weird, or whatever it is people think is so wrong about gay people. 

Seth comes over to him at his locker and gives him a pat on the back. “It’s just you and me, now,” he says, like they’re in on something together. In a way, they are. “I wonder who will come out next. Maybe Theo.”

Stiles snorts at that. Down the hall, Derek is there, of course he is, in his glasses. Stile wants to run and hide when he sees him, shame coloring his cheeks. Derek had never answered any of Stiles’ many texts or phone calls, his voice mail likely deleted as soon as Derek saw it in his inbox. 

That hurts, but maybe it’s what Stiles deserves. 

He doesn’t get pushed into any lockers or locked in the bathroom or really bullied at all; most people aren’t outwardly homophobic anymore, so at least there’s that. 

There seems to be only one person who actively gets bullied around this school – during his free period, Stiles comes out of the bathroom to see Derek and Isaac dumping Theo head first into a Brute trash can. He stops dead in his tracks, a laugh bubbling up in his throat before he can stop himself, and Derek looks up to meet his eyes. 

He doesn’t say anything. He just wheels the trash can down the hall, Theo’s legs kicking the whole way down. Derek never did, to Stiles’ knowledge, go nuts and beat the living hell out of Theo for what he had done to Stiles at the dance. It seems as though what Derek has actually done to him is even worse; knocked him off of his pedestal and made him a target of ridicule. After years of what Theo put Stiles and others through, it is only fair. 

In the parking lot at the end of the day, Derek is there stuffing his bags into the back of his Range Rover again. Stiles honestly expects him to say nothing, not a word, for them to never speak again, at this rate – but Derek surprises him again, leaning against his car. 

He’s smirking again, but not the same way as before. “I got your message,” he says, stopping Stiles abruptly, so his shoes skid against the pavement. 

“Oh,” Stiles is shocked to hear it. 

Instead of talking about the contents of the message itself, Derek squares his shoulders and says, “the last game of the season is coming up.”

“Yeah,” Stiles wonders if he’ll be able to say anything more than a single syllable to Derek Hale ever again. 

“It’d be cool if you came,” Derek looks up at the sun, his glasses shining. “You haven’t been to any of my games recently.” 

“Well,” Stiles stutters, and then clears his throat. “I was feeling pretty sure you wouldn’t want me there.” 

Derek shakes his head. “I want you there.” 

“Oh,” Stiles says this again, feeling idiotic. His face feels hot and he has to clear his throat again. “Okay?”

Derek gets into his car and drives away, Stiles staring after him, stupefied. In reality there could be any number of reasons that Derek would want Stiles at the last game of the season; first of all, it’s not just the last game of the season, it’s Derek’s last high school football game ever. Derek doesn’t have a whole lot in his life, and this likely is one of the most important nights of all time to him, a memory to be cherished for a long time coming. His last time on the field with these boys, as a team. 

Second of all, there’s no one else Derek can really ask to come. It’s only Stiles. It’s always just been Stiles.

**

“It’s cool you’re being supportive and all,” Scott says with a mouthful of gummy bears on the bleachers, gesturing vaguely to the field down below, “but this feels like masochism to me.”

“Oh, it definitely is,” Stiles admits, in his Beacon Hills debate team sweatshirt yet again. He never did buy any new school merchandise, after all. He had kind of figured he’d never set foot on this football field again, but here he is, among the rest of the brainless masses. “He asked me to come.” 

“Right,” Scott rolls his eyes, eats more gummy bears. 

“It’s his last high school game,” he continues to reason, maybe more to himself than to Scott. Logically there’s no real reason for him to be here, and he knows it, but the truth is, as soon as Derek had asked him to come, he never had any real choice. 

“I guess there is a bit of nostalgia to it,” Scott agrees all the same, shrugging. He doesn’t care what happens here tonight so long as he gets to eat, Stiles figures. 

When the team steps onto the field there’s the usual fanfare over Derek as there’s ever been; the cheerleaders chant his name and Derek pays it all no mind, stepping onto the field and scanning the crowd. He spots Stiles just like he always used to, before smashing his helmet onto his head so no one can see his face, including Stiles.

As the game goes on, Stiles feels like he’s in an alternate universe. The only times he’s ever come to these games, really, were when he was with Derek. To be here now, with everything almost the same as always except that one major detail, it’s almost like the earth has shifted on its axis. It’s like he doesn’t belong there, almost, among everyone else clapping and watching, the spectacle that is Derek Hale. 

Stiles wonders what will happen. When Derek goes away to Beacon and inevitably joins the NFL. What team will he be on? Will he be in another state? With someone else? Will these days with Stiles be like a blip on his radar screen, something to forget about? 

They win, because of course they do. Theo had been benched most of the game, much to his evident chagrin, but it’s not like he has any real reason to play anymore. He didn’t even get into college. The cheerleaders go nuts and so does the crowd, chanting Beacon Hills and Derek’s name with equal amounts of verve, and Stiles claps. He’s happy for Derek, really he is. 

Though there is this sinking feeling in his chest that perhaps this is one of the last times they’ll ever see each other. There are several months left of the school year, yes, but something has him scared, more scared than he’d ever admit, that he and Derek have just had their last night together. 

Stiles is getting ready to tell Scott they should go, because he’s getting sad and has had just about enough of this, when Derek rips his helmet off of his head down at the base of the bleachers. He tosses it to the side, so it rolls off and away as though he has no real need for it anymore, and then he starts coming up. 

He’s running, and he’s athletic enough he takes the stairs fast fast. Up he comes, closer and closer to where Stiles is standing, but Stiles has absolutely no idea what he intends to do once he gets to the top. Normally, Derek isn’t very much for fanfare or showboating.

Derek is looking right at him, Stiles notices, the closer he gets. Stiles looks behind himself, half expecting there to be something there that’s of interest to Derek – there isn’t. Derek is looking at him. Only him. 

He comes to a stop right next to where Stiles is standing. He’s panting from the run and the game, sweat on his brow, his hair a mess like it always is. Stiles stares at him, incredulous. “What are you doing?” Stiles asks him, nervously looking around, at where everyone is staring at them. 

Derek looks him right in the face, this thin smile, the familiar intensity in his eyes. “I don’t want this,” he gestures to the crowd, the field, the team, all of it, “any of it, if I can’t be honest.”

“Okay,” Stiles says. He still isn’t following. 

“You made me a fucking better person,” he grins, a real one, full face, his teeth all out on display. “You stopped me from flushing my entire life away, you made me want to do better. You were the only person in my life who didn’t see me as a waste of time.”

Stiles swallows. Everyone is looking at them. 

“And if I can’t take you with me, then I don’t want to go.” 

“Derek.” Stiles laughs. He cannot be serious. 

Derek takes him by his arms, the same way he always has. Without any hesitation, he pulls Stiles in and kisses him; right there, in front of everyone. In front of the school and the coach and the team and Theo Raeken and any of those football scouts who might be watching. Without a care in the world, Derek kisses him. 

There may be varying reactions from people in the crowd. All he knows is that the overwhelming majority of people are cheering, so loud his ears hurt. Maybe that’s just because Scott is going apeshit next to him, but either way, Stiles’ heart is beating so loud in his ears he can’t make heads or tails of anything else. 

When they pull apart, Derek speaks again. “I’m sorry that it took me so long to realize that. I’m so used to fucking everything up that when everything went to shit, I just let it happen. I never should’ve walked away that day in your bedroom.” 

Stiles shakes his head, there’s nothing to apologize for. There is nothing to be sorry for. Or, maybe there is, but all of that is water under the bridge now. 

“I’m in love with you,” Stiles confesses, and Derek gives him that genuine smile, again. “But what if they –“

“I’m the best,” he shrugs, like it’s a non-issue. “I’m the fucking best. If they want the best, they had better get used to it.” 

Even though it’s never been part of their relationship, Stiles throws his arms around Derek and hugs him. Holds him close against his body, despite how sweaty and dirty and gross he is. Derek hugs him back, squeezing hard, like he’s afraid to let go. 

In Stiles’ wildest dreams, he never would have imagined he would wind up here. With Derek Hale, in front of the whole school, together. And everything that happened leading up to this point was just a stepping stone in getting here; even when it was hard to see that, they never could’ve wound up here had it not been for all of that bullshit. 

Stiles lets go of him, but Derek takes his hand. Derek has never held his hand before. “I’m not very emotionally intelligent,” Derek confesses, like this is yet another apology. 

He waves it off, it’s nothing, it doesn’t matter, not right now. 

“I guess this is my version of drunkenly climbing on top of Lydia Martin’s kitchen island,” he gestures to all the people, what seems like the whole world to Stiles, right now. 

“I just thought you were going to forget about me,” Stiles admits. 

“You always think you know everything,” Derek teases, lifting his eyebrows. He has said the same thing so, so many times – this time, Stiles can’t help but laugh. He feels giddy, crazy almost. 

There is no way for them to know how, if ever, they’re going to make it work. It almost doesn’t matter, since no one can predict the future. But they would be insane, criminally insane, to not want Derek just because he’s been with Stiles intimately, even if they wind up actually…dating. Which is an insane thought. 

Derek is the best. There is no one like him. There never will be again.


	11. Okay, Fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can admit I left more than one loose end - or if not loose ends necessarily, just things I never got to fully address like what’s up with Derek’s sisters, Derek’s mom, Derek and Isaac’s relationship. Once I got to 100k I knew I had to wrap it up lmfao. I have no idea if I’d ever do a sequel, but the opportunity is there if I got bored enough to do it. I hope you liked it!!!!!!

Stiles looks in the mirror on a rainy Saturday morning, toothbrush in his mouth, to see Derek Hale hovering in the doorway behind him. His heart jumps out of his chest, because Derek had snuck up on him – he nearly chokes on foamy toothpaste, leaning over the sink to spit quickly. 

“Derek,” he says, some toothpaste around his lips, his voice distorted because he’s still brushing, toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. 

“I thought I’d surprise you,” he says. Probably, the Sheriff let him in downstairs and gave him a frown and sent him up to find Stiles right here. He’s not Derek’s biggest fan, but slowly and surely, he’s becoming less of a member of Derek’s official hate group. Many people do still belong to that group, maybe a handful more since Derek had come out in front of the entire school. These days, it’s so easy to drown those people out Stiles nearly forgets they exist at all. 

“You succeeded,” he spits one more time, rinsing his mouth out with water. Derek watches as Stiles wipes his face with a nearby towel, so Stiles smirks and feels silly, with Derek’s eyes on him. “Did you come to hang out?” 

Derek is fully dressed, hair done, face shaven, eyes clear. It’s barely eight o’clock in the morning. The Derek of yesteryear would never in a million years be up before eleven AM on Saturday, would’ve been out until three in the morning drinking at some fuckbag’s house at a party, would’ve hooked up with some random girl he’d never remember the name of. 

The Derek of today usually eats dinner with Stiles on Friday nights, does homework, maybe watches a movie with his limbs tangle up with Stiles’ in bed. 

“I thought I’d take you out.”

Stiles is surprised, again. “You mean, like, out out?”

“Breakfast.”

“Breakfast?” He repeats, eyebrows going into his hairline. “At a restaurant?”

“Ideally, yes.” 

Derek has never once been anywhere in public with Stiles; not when they were enemies, not when they were secret lovers, and still not now that they’re publicly dating. Stiles had sort of figured he wanted to ease everyone into the idea of Derek Hale being in a relationship with another boy, to not be out and about shoving it down everyone’s throats if only to get them all used to it. 

Yet here he is, fully prepared to start shoving. Stiles is happy he’s already taken a shower and done his hair, quickly nodding, enthusiastic and nervous at the same time. “Okay, yeah, uh – let me just –“ he smooths out his shirt and moves to go past Derek to his bedroom, to collect his phone and wallet. 

Derek does not move. He stays planted, huge and in the way, so Stiles has no choice but to bump into him. Unlike many of the other times they’ve ever greeted one another, Derek does not seem awkward, anymore. Stiles has stopped saying that little affections are not a part of their relationship; they are, definitely. Just…in Derek’s own way.

Derek puts his hand on Stiles’ shoulder, squeezes. It reminds him of something more friendly than romantic, but that’s just how Derek is. Then, he moves out of the way and allows Stiles to pass. 

In the car as the rain batters the hood, Stiles is high energy. He fiddles with the radio, much to Derek’s silent chagrin. If he had it his way, they’d ride in silence every single day, music more of an annoyance at worst and background noise at best than something he ever genuinely enjoys. And Stiles’ music, as luck would have it, Derek hates most of all. He calls it depressing. 

“Where should we go?” Stiles asks, as Derek comes to the intersection that will send them off to downtown. 

“I thought that place by the library.”

Stiles is, once again, surprised. “That place is nice,” like, way too nice. It is certainly not a greasy spoon diner with flapjacks and scrambled eggs. It’s one of those trendy brunch spots that does artisan breakfast sandwiches and has eight different kinds of mimosas, craft beers, menu items with ingredients that are hard to pronounce. “Are we uh. You know.”

Derek side eyes him, because he certainly does not know. 

“You know. Going on a…date?”

“Not really,” Derek shrugs, and Stiles nods like oh yes, of course not, I was joking around anyway. “It’s not really a date when you’re already together.”

“That’s why they call it dating,” he argues, gesturing to them there in the car, as if them here right now only proves his point. “Because the parties involved go on outings together.” 

Derek turns on his blinker and smiles thinly, his eyes blocked by his usual sunglasses, so he is as hard to read as he ever is. “It just seems asinine to give it a title, like that.” 

“Oh, totally,” Stiles agrees, again nodding too enthusiastically. Derek looks at him and smiles bigger, shrugging. 

“If you want to call it a date, then sure. It’s a date.” More often lately, Derek only argues with Stiles because it makes him laugh. Stiles gets riled up about silly things and Derek cares about nothing, nothing at all, so he’ll play Devil’s Advocate just because he likes to hear Stiles go batty about something as stupid as what does or does not quantify a “date.” Stiles likes semantics and technicalities and proving people wrong; Derek likes that Stiles likes those things, finds it amusing. 

Stiles leans back in his seat, chewing on his bottom lip, watching the scenery go past. “You want to hold hands?” 

Derek lays his arm out on the center console, resting his hand loosely, palm out. Stiles grabs it and squeezes, interlacing their fingers together. Derek bears these romances with no commentary, most of the time, like he’s not used to it and feels awkward doing it, but does so anyway just to appease Stiles’ insatiable appetite for touch. 

In the restaurant parking lot, Derek walks side by side with Stiles, putting his arm around Stiles’ shoulders briefly, squeezing him tight against his side, and then releases. It, again, is more friendly than romantic, but Stiles has learned to really love Derek’s bro-like intimacies. It’s their own personal thing. 

Stiles and Derek have never before been in a restaurant together, so it is a baffling surprise when, after Stiles slides into his side of the booth, Derek does not slide into the opposite side like Stiles would expect any normal person to do. 

He fits himself right next to Stiles, having to kind of push Stiles’ hip with his own to fit his full width onto the cushion. Stiles moves against the wall and tries to hide a smile; he wonders if Derek is doing this because he simply does not give one iota of a fuck if people think he’s weird for this, if Derek likes to do just whatever he wants at all times, no matter if people find it odd that two teenage boys are huddled together on one of a restaurant booth. 

“I’ve never been here before,” Stiles starts up, opening up his menu and bumping elbows with Derek as he peruses the contents. “I just know about it because I like to look up menus on the internet, even for places I never plan to go to.” 

“An interesting pastime,” Derek smirks. 

“I have full on checked out restaurants in New York City.” 

“Anything good?”

“Uh, it’s the big apple. There’s a lot good, so much stuff you’ve never even heard of. Vegan barbecue, ever heard of it?”

Derek turns his neck, resting his cheek in a palm and smirking, tracing Stiles’ face with his eyes. “That sounds bad, honestly.” 

“It’s award winning,” Stiles corrects. “Aren’t you curious?”

“Curiosity is your thing,” he shrugs. “I prefer regular old boring meat.” 

As time has gone on and their relationship has become more solid, Stiles has noticed that they have a bit of a zig-zag in terms of their differences. Where Stiles zigs, Derek zags. Derek likes things he’s familiar with, would honestly be content with the same routine day after day – while Stiles gets stir crazy and has to do something different, at least every now and then. 

Derek gets orange juice, Stiles orders coffee. As they sip, Derek taps his fingers on the menu and seems to be going through an existential crisis of some kind, furrowing his brow at the items listed. 

Stiles has already got his menu closed up tight, locked and loaded on what he’s going to order. “Hard choices?”

“I can never decide between breakfast or lunch,” he admits, then meets Stiles’ eyes. “Maybe both.”

“How does one do both?” 

Derek gestures to the menu. “Breakfast platter and also a burger.” 

“You cannot eat both,” Stiles laughs, shakes his head. Derek lifts his eyebrows and smirks, like oh yes, yes he certainly can. That’s precisely what he orders. Pancakes, bacon, two eggs, toast, a cheeseburger, and fries. Stiles gets a waffle and a side of hashbrowns. “I shudder to think what kind of shit you’re going to take later.”

Derek’s laugh is quick, genuine, surprised. “It takes a lot of fuel to power all of this,” he pats his chest, and Stiles guesses that just about makes sense. Even though the season is over, Derek is at the gym every single fucking day, lifting weights, running around, this that and the other thing. Stiles actually has no idea what he gets up to, in there – he refuses to tag along because working out is a nightmare. 

The food comes and it’s like a buffet – plates upon plates, nearly all of them for Derek to hoard to himself. He eats like his life depends upon it, sopping hashbrowns up in egg yolk, crunching on bacon two slices at a time, barely finishing chewing before he’s onto the next bite. Stiles isn’t even done cutting his waffle into manageable triangles, and Derek has polished off half of his food. 

“You didn’t order enough food,” Derek tells him, looking at Stiles’ huge waffle and decent side of potatoes. 

“Uh, you ordered rations for an entire family to get through a quarantine,” Stiles corrects, and Derek shrugs, looking at his food like _what_? 

“No wonder you’re so skinny,” he teases, poking Stiles in the side with a greasy bacon finger. Stiles laughs, pushing Derek’s hand away. 

As he’s turning to get back to chewing up his waffle, he looks up and spots a truly unfortunate ghoul coming towards their table. He stiffens, looking away quickly and frowning. 

Derek notices Stiles’ mood change near instantly. “What is it?”

“It’s just, uh –“ Stiles keeps his eyes trained on his plate of food, “Theo is here.” 

This is not as abhorrent a development to Derek as it is to Stiles. Derek straightens up, wipes his hands off on the nice cloth napkin, and shrugs his shoulders. “Don’t get upset,” he says, “I’m right here.” 

Right, and what could Theo possibly do with Derek Hale right there? Surely he’d never be so stupid as to say absolutely anything to Stiles within Derek’s ear shot, not anymore. Stiles figures he’ll just keep on his merry way to his own table, wherever that may be, but Derek summons him. 

“Raeken,” he says, when he’s close enough to be in earshot. Stiles grabs Derek’s wrist, squeezing, because what the hell does he think he’s doing inviting the devil over to their table? Derek breaks free and seems to be enjoying this, smirking as he sips his orange juice almost too haughtily. 

“What do you want, Hale?” He acts like Stiles isn’t there, is invisible or something. Maybe that’s for the best. 

“Just saying hello,” he says with a grin. It is not a very nice grin. Then, he leans back and puts his arm around the back of the booth, so it rests against Stiles’ shoulders. “Reminding you that even with being a faggot and all I’m still on a full ride to Beacon, I guess.” He cocks his head to the side and feigns ignorance, his eyes going far away as if he’s thinking really hard. “Where are you going again? Oh, right,” he snaps his fingers, smirking again. “Nowhere.” 

Theo glares. Oh, what he wouldn’t give to be able to flip this table over, here and now. To grab Stiles and beat the hell out of him again, because he’d never in his life go after Derek, but rather would only ever go after those around him. Instead, he just stands there and knows that his options are none, nothing, he’s got no comebacks, no smartass remarks, no more moves to make. “Fuck off, Hale,” he mutters, and then wanders off to lick his wounds. 

Derek laughs, the mean one, going back to eating his pancakes like it’s his reward for all those zingers he threw out. “What was all that?” Stiles asks, and Derek swallows what food he’s got in his mouth and shrugs. 

“I’m just feeling very gloaty. I got exactly what I wanted, and he got absolutely nothing. Just rubbing it in.”

“You are an asshole,” Stiles says, but he’s smiling as he says it. It was fun to watch Theo be verbally attacked, after all. 

“I know, it keeps me up at night,” he shrugs, picking up his cheeseburger with delight in his eyes. He takes a huge bite, chews, swallows, then sets it down. “You know, I love you.” 

“Yeah, I know,” Stiles pushes a waffle square around on his plate, smiling. “What do you think is gonna happen, when you go to school next Fall?”

“What do you mean?”

Stiles hadn’t wanted to seem clingy, so he hadn’t asked – but now, as Derek’s graduation looms closer and he’s going through the motions of applying for on campus housing and getting a meal card and all that, Stiles can’t hold back from asking any longer. “I mean…when you go to school, what’s gonna happen with us?”

Derek blinks at him. He had been holding his cheeseburger again, but now, he puts it down on top of his pancakes and seems irritated that Stiles would even ask him this. “Stiles, I about shit all over everything I’ve worked for my entire life just to be with you, and you really have to ask me that?”

Stiles scratches at his cheek, shrugs, won’t meet Derek’s eyes. “I’m insecure,” he reasons. “It’d just be nice to like…know.” 

“Okay,” Derek turns his body as much as he can in the booth, so he’s facing Stiles head on. “There is next to no possibility that there will ever be someone else like you who could stand to be around me for more than five minutes. Especially not at Beacon. I’m going to be spending nearly all of my time in class or on the field working my ass off, there is not going to even be a ton of time for me to meet anyone else but other meatheads. If I want to be pro, I need to stop partying and focus, so that’s another thing you don’t need to worry about. I hate literally everyone else on this earth aside from you, so,” he reaches out, adjusts a single strand of Stiles’ hair, “I don’t know what you think is going to change.” 

Stiles sucks in a deep breath and feels stupid for even saying it. “We’re not gonna be at school together anymore.” 

“Okay, and?”

“And there are a lot of new people at college, you know.”

“I don’t want to meet anyone new,” he says, serious as a heart attack, “I want to be with you.” 

Maybe it is foolish and somewhat childish to believe that he and Derek could possibly be together until they die or something, but one thing is certainly for sure – they went through way too much, way way way too much, for their relationship to be fucked just by the sheer fact of Derek being away at college. For Christ’s sake, the campus is only five miles away from Stiles’ house.

Not that he had googled it, or anything. 

“Okay,” Stiles agrees, sitting up a bit straighter. “Okay, fine.” 

Derek leans forward and kisses Stiles on the mouth, there in front of everyone, like it’s nothing. When they pull apart, Stiles looks around to find that, hey, as a matter of fact, outside of high school and football, most people don’t care so much about two boys kissing, any longer. 

In football, it will be a fight. Stiles knows that since Derek plans on being open about his sexuality, he will have a nightmare on his hands. It will be hard. People will say horrible things about him, Stiles is sure of it. 

If this whole experience has taught Stiles and probably Derek nothing else, it’s that things that matter, truly matter, are worth going through the nightmare for. Maybe Stiles and Derek can’t be together forever. Stiles would be naïve to think so. The fact remains that they have both changed the others’ life, permanently, irrevocably, so whether they’re fucking or not, they will be in each other’s lives for as long as they can be. 

College, and the NFL, and whatever else. Derek will know Stiles forever.


End file.
